sick pictus cat

[zelda]

Hello, I am a new member to this list and I am hoping that someone can help me with a problem that I have with my Pictus cat. My fish are suffering from ich (purchased some guppies from a pet store and they seem to be the ones that brought it into the tank - they all died). I am treating the ich with the salt treatment (read the sticky here on it). All the fish seem to be doing o.k. with the salt except for my pictus cat. He has lost his whiskers and now his tail looks like it is losing all the skin on it. Is this from the salt? Not sure what I should do about him - does anyone know what may be causing his distress? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Zelda

[Sarah84]

Catfish are scale less.. this could be why and very sensitive to salt and other things. I would first do a water change to lower the salinity of the water. and then I would lower the dosage drastically, or even stop the dosing. I don't know what else to suggest, someone will come along and have input
Sarah

[Tommy Gun]

I agree with sarah and would cut the dose of salt in half to what is usually recomended. This is generally the case for any fish tank that holds scaleless fish and some tetras as well. I am not sure if the salt itself would make your pictus' skin fall off. Does it look like that fish has a lot of dust on it by chance...sort of like gold dust?

[zelda]

It does not look like he has any sort of dust on him. I do not even see any spots on him (like the ich). What is the minimum amount of salt I need in the water in order to kill the ich? When I read the posting about it I understood it to say one should use 2 tsp per actual gallon of water - correct? I did not go that high and used 1 1/2 tsp per gallon of water over a period of time (I did not add it all at once). Do you think he will recover? He is a pretty big fish and he actually ate some of the guppies that died. He got one of them caught in his mouth and could not get it down. My husband told me I had to get the fish out of his mouth or he would die. It was a little tricky but I did manage to get the dead guppie out of his mouth. After all "we" have been through I would hate to lose him
Once again - any help is much appreciated.
Thanks,
Zelda

[BJP]

Minnimum level is going to be closer to 1/2 tablespoon per five gallons for killing ick in the freeswimming stage. 50% water change vacuuming well and refilling with no salt addition. Tommorow a 25% water change vacuuming well with no salt addition for the top off water should get you in the ballpark. After that 25% water changes vacuuming well adding 1/2 tablespoon of salt per five gallons of refill water daily wouldn't be a bad idea.

If you really want to skate the minnimums, a salt level test kit by API commonly availible at garden centers and such that deal in ponds can get you exact with a way to measure. Under $10 at the garden center up the road. 0.05% is enough. A level half tablespoon should end up near 0.06% depending on grain size of the salt.

[zelda]

Just wanted to thank everyone for their help with this. I started the water exchange (out with the salty and in with no salt added) but my poor pictus died anyway. I feel really bad about his passing. All my other fish seem to be doing fine. I have an irredescent shark in there and he seems to be doing o.k. (now that I am not trying to "pickle" him anymore). I also have 5 red tail rasboras, 3 albino striped barbs and 2 head and tail light tetras (had 3 but one died). It is a 36 gallon tank and I do want to get more fish but I know I have to wait until I have gotten rid of the ich.

Once again - Thanks to all who have helped me. This is a nice site and there are a lot of very informed people on it. I have learned quite a bit by "browsing".
Zelda

[BJP]

I should go ahead and mention now before the problem shows itself. The ID shark grows way too large for your aquarium pushing 3 to 4 feet if given a chance. In the meantime, they tend to rub on the glass trying to find a bigger home resulting in a constant pink infection area across the mouth/nose area. I tend to encourage keeping salt in with them and a good fungal med on hand. You'll need both before you give up on him. I wish I had good news but I've been in way too many conversations on the topic which always ended sadly eventually. I was stupid enough to stock them in my store early on and sold a bunch which led to having this conversation over and over and over and over and over again. You can save yourself a lot of grief later by taking preventative steps now.

[zelda]

Thanks for the heads up on the ID shark. Is there a good med that you recommend I should have on hand? I thought I was going to lose him before as he seemed to be so sluggish and not eating very much. Now he seems much better and ate a lot yesterday (his belly looked big). Now that you tell me he is going to get too big for my tank I am not so happy that he ate so much. Why do they sell fish that are going to get too big? I know it did not say on the little tag by the tank he was in that he would get that big! Maybe it is my fault for not being better informed I always thought that fish would only get as big as their enviroment would allow -? Is there anything else I can do at this point to keep him healthy, happy and small??????

Also - does anyone know how long it is going to take to get all of the ich out of my tank? When it will be safe for me to buy more fish? I do not see any spots on any of the fish but I noticed yesterday that some of the barbs were skipping off an ornament again. How long can the eggs or whatever it is that goes into the gravel live? Will keeping some salt in the water keep it in check so that it does not get on my fish anymore?

Sorry for all of the questions but I believe that the experiences of others is by far the best information one can obtain.

Thanks again for all the help.

[Tommy Gun]

Just to give you an idea on how quickly the ID shark can grow, here is a picture of one at an LFS next to my hand...I was told that it is 18 months old:


Typically, when Ich is in its free swimming stages, it can live for about 2 to 4 weeks without finding a host fish. The problem is that you have fish for it to host on and so you would want to keep treating for Ich even though there are no visible signs for about that same length of time.

Like BJP is pointing out though, you can bring Ich back into your tank very easily by buying new fish and not quarantining them for two to four weeks at least. Just something to think about. Keep in mind that when you set your tank up and up until you put your very first fish in there, it is almost certain that no ich was living in it. That means you must have brought it into the tank via a new fish or by adding the water from the LFS directly to the water in your tank. To keep your display tank free and clear of Ich, a quarantine tank would greatly increase your chances of success doing so. Make sense?

[BJP]

Is there a good med that you recommend I should have on hand?

I've had a lot of success treating that pinkish infected mess on them with Fungus Eliminater by Jungle but I haven't been able to locate the product in my area in the last month. It's still listed on their website so it might still be in production but it looks like most stroes are limiting themselves to the fizzy tab line now and skipping the wider usefulness of the bottled meds in crystalline form.

http://www.junglelabs.com/pages/details.asp?item=NJ117