Ich and Velvet questions

[1fish2fish]

Ok so Sid very clearly has Ich. I know how to treat it but I was wondering what I should do with his tank. Its a 3 gallon that he is in temporarily until I set up my Mom's 20 gallon. I'm treating Sid in a 5 gallon tank. How should I disinfect the 3 gallon tank. Will cleaning it with a bleach solution and boiling water be enough to kill the parasite in that tank? Also what about the java moss that is in that tank, will dipping it in bleach solution and rinsing get any Ich off of that as well?


Now onto my velvet questions.

Demetri very clearly has velvet (I thought it was ich at first). What is the best course of treatment for it? He is in a divided tank so I assume that I need to treat his two neighbors as well.

His two neighbors have light colored bodies so I can't really tell if they have velvet or not. Can I just treat the entire 6 gallon tank or should I remove everyone to a hospital tank? How should I disinfect the tank?

[Adastra]

I would start by isolating the fish and raising the temperature to 83 degrees slowly, and increasing water changes to every other day. Ich and velvet are usually only found on fish that have been weakened in some way. Just because one fish in a tank has it does not necessarily mean that all fish need to be treated--many believe that ich and velvet are found in almost all aquariums, but that healthy fish don't get infested because they have healthy immune systems.

Shining a flashlight on the lightbodied individuals should help you diagnose any velvet, look for crustiness in between the scales especially. Keep in mind that many lightbodied individuals are naturally yellow-green iridescent, don't confuse iridescent coloration with velvet, you should see crusty yellow bits between the scales all over the body if they have velvet.

Velvet thrives in a high light environment, cover the tank to deter the growth of more velvet. If darkness, clean water, and elevated temperatures continue to just make the ich and velvet worse, I suggest using a malachite green treatment, such as Jungle's Ich Clear. This works on both ich and velvet.

Keep in mind that there is probably a reason behind why these fish are sick--you should review your tank conditions and try to hunt down possible sources of stress that caused the fish to weaken.

As for sterilizing the tank, simply washing it out in hot water should be enough, vinegar would also help. For plant dips, I use a potassium permanganate solution. The easy thing about PP is that the depth of the color helps you determine the strength of the solution--I dip for about half an hour in dark pink (purple is too strong, light pink is too weak) potassium permanganate. You can find PP powder in the pool supplies section of Ace Hardware. This stuff is dangerous, and isn't always readily available, so I would call around before going to stores. Apparently glycerin + potassium permanganate = explosion. Fun.

[1fish2fish]

Well I think the ich was caused by a sudden temperature drop in my fish room. That has been remedied. That fish is in the best health so that is the only thing I can think of that would have caused it. I had just removed him from his fry so it could be that he was a little depressed but I don't see how that would seriously weaken his immune system.

The velvet I have no clue. All the fish in that tank are relatively healthy, besides loss of rays (they're CTs) from my hard water. The tank is cycled and water changes are weekly or twice a week.

All the fish are acting and eating normally. The female in my divided tank (the one with the velvet fish) has clamped fins and that is the only sign I see of any illness.

Since velvet is an organism wouldn't I want to treat the entire tank to make sure all the organisms in the tank are killed?

Oh.. and when should I expect to start seeing the velvet disappear? (provided salt, heat, and clean water do the trick) I know Ich usually takes 2 weeks to be treated, is it the same for velvet?

[1fish2fish]

Sorry to bump but I just wanted to know if anyone knew when I should start seeing results with the Velvet. When should I start looking into medication if salt/ clean water doesn't work? A few days? A week?