Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

We have a pretty new system and lost a few fish to the ammonia spike and I think some to the nitrite spike. Now all the numbers look pretty good, but of course my stressed fish have got ich.

I set up a little hospital barrel (nine gallons with a little over 6ppt salt and a power head to provide circulation but no filtration).

I see that I can put the fish in there for 15 minutes, but what I can't find is information on how often I should do that and for what peried of time. Twice a day for a week? Once every 24 hours until signs dissappear? What should I expect?

The fish seem to like it so far. The one I am almost positive is going to die is actually swimming upright now. But catching them is a pain and I don't want to stress them more than I have to, either.

If your going to hospital bath fish you should keep them all in a floating basket or something similar so that you dont cause stress while catching them. This way you can pull them out and dip them for an hour, then put them back. Minimal effort and stress. Id do this once per day until the problem is gone.

Happy to report that my fish are doing MUCH better. I didn't have a good set up for a basket to pull them in and out and didn't want to just chase them around, either. So I put them in a salt bath only once (3 cups of salt to 9 gallons of water).

Then I upped the salinity of their tanks. It's only at about 2 ppt so really only enough to support the fish but not effect the Ich any. But we're also experiencing a bit of a heatwave with daytime temperatures near 90 and heat is supposed to be very effective at interrupting the life cycle.

So I don't know if it is the heat or the salt, but it's only been a couple days and I don't see any spots on the fish. A few are still flashing, but not nearly as much as they were and they're interested in their food again.