I just recently got a pair of baby "fancy" goldfish. I noticed one has ich on its tail so quickly removed it into a small plastic container until i can get a suitable sized "hospital" tank this weekend.
I was wondering if the treatment with salt was the same for babies as for adults? The fish is an inch plus tail.

With meds I usually use half the dose but with salt treatments,I use the same amount as with adults.I've treated my frys for parasite with 0.3% salinity with no problems

thanks!!
since i have never salted before, how much do you add to a gallon and do you dissolve it in water before you add it?

1 teaspoon per gallon will give you 0.1% salinity.After 12 hours,add another 1 teaspoon per gallon which will bring you to 0.2%.After 12 hours,repeat which will give you 0.3% salinity Always dissolve salt with tank water first before adding in tank.I would also advice you to do daily gravel vacs and 50% water change to get rid of as much cysts(ich).If you have a heater,gradually heating the tank(1* per hour) to 26*C will help shorten the ich's life cycle.Hope that helped a bit

it helps EXTREMELY! thanks so much for the help!! im glad the fishy is still acting lively and eating as of now, thats always a good sign!

oh one more quesion, should i salt the tank he was in with the other just to be safe?

Just see to it that you treat for another 10 days after the last cyst has dropped off.Good luck and keep us posted

wonderful, thank you!!
so you recommend i salt the main tank that he was in too then?

also, i must tell you, ive been eyeing chilly willy the last couple of days... GORGEOUS!!

If he was in the main tank,there's a possibility that that tank is infected too so it would be best to treat it as well just to be safe

Thank you Chilly Willy was a very special fish to me

As Cathy says, definitely salt the main tank also. To be honest, you could treat them all in the main tank as the adults may have dropped off your fish while in that tank and once the adults drop off, they surround themselves in a capsule. Inside each capsule resides roughly 250 - 1000 swarmers just waiting to reinfect fish.

So it may be easier to salt just the one tank and treat them together

And I agree, Chilly Willy was the most beautiful fish

So I should put the baby back in with the others then salt? (Sorry, Ive never salted before!!)

Also is there a certain brand of aquairum salt you would recommend or are they all about equal?

Yes - pop him back with the others as the salt will knock them out and then there's no chance of cross-reinfestation.

I'm going through - or nearing the end of - an ich infestation myself and i just went down to my local supermarket and purchased a couple of packets of sea salt - all free from added chemicals.

Have you got a heater you can use?

The way this works is you quickly add your 1 teaspoon per gallon, then 12 hrs later, the other and then 12 after - the remainder (exactly as Cathy outlined above) and once that's done, then start raising the temp of the tank..... What this does it speeds up the lifecycle of the parasites and then the 0.3% salt takes them down...

make sure to remove any plants you have though as they will have trouble surviving the raised salinity.

Also, were are you at with cycling? Is your tank fully cycled? Otherwise, the regime will need to include waterchanges to keep any ammonia/nitrites under control - especially as they'll need to be strong to come out of this unscathed

the tank has been cycling for a little over a week. ammonia levels are not as satisfactory as id like. i am still doing frequent water changes on the tank. i dont have an extra heater but i may be able to get one this weekend!
thanks for all the help!

I feel a lot more confident now that you're here Jen Thanks!

Glitterfish,good luck with the treatment!Hoping for a fast recovery

me too, thanks for all the help jen and cathy!!

i made the mistake of putting the first salt dose in at 3 in the afternoon so now i have to stay up till 3am to put the 2nd one in!! oh well, less than 2 hours to go! good thing im a night owl!

Lol...dedicated When I had to salt tanks I always made sure I did the math cuz I had school and couldn't be staying up that late to dose salt.

good thing i dont have a job! lol

hi!

you probably already know this, but just in case... when doing frequent water changes due to the ich and the ammonia, make sure that the water you add back doesn't contain ammonia as well!

we made this mistake with our two new baby fancy goldfish... our tap water has high choloramine levels, which we only found out about later, and the chemical we were using to treat our water only broke down the chloramines into chlorine and ammonia. It treated the chlorine, like all water treatment chemicals do, but not the ammonia!

now, our fish have recovered from ich, but have very bad ammonia burns. so, it is worth testing your water for ammonia and using a chemical like Amquel or Amquel+ in order to make sure that you don't put in as many bad chemicals with the new water as you take out!!!