Making sure the ich is gone.

As of last night I couldn't stand how dirty the tank was any more. I did a 50% water change (I figured while I was at it I'd get rid of as many ich organisms as I could). After filling the tank back up I added a 1/2 dose of CopperSafe and 1/2 of my salt back in to replace what was taken out with the water. One hour later I tested both the copper levels and the salinity and found I needed a tad more salt, but the copper level looked good.

Still no signs of ich. My plans are to continue to treat with a full dose salt and copper as well as a temperature of 85*F for at least another week. After that I may begin lowering the temperature and decreasing the copper and salt via water changes (ie: change 25% of the water and not add back the salt and copper afterwards).

For some background: I got the ich originally from PetSmart with a batch of pictus catfish and rubbernose plecos. None of the fish survived it because I caught it way too late. I treated the tank with Aquari-Sol for 2 weeks after the last fish died, then added the cichlids and the large bristlenose pleco, which started showing signs of ich after about a week.

At the time of adding the cichlids I chose not to quarantine them because I had only one seemingly ich-resistant bushynose pleco in the tank at the time. But, even with having had the ich from PetSmart, I was fairly sure I wouldn't quarantine in the future either. The reason was that it is just so hard to set up a tank (including cycling) to run for 2-3 weeks, then have to break down and store it...

But after this round I'm done. All of the fish I purchase from now on will be quarantined!

Speaking of which, I may go get the other half of my planned cichlid purchase this weekend. That way, by the time I'm sure the tank will be completely cured of ich, the new cichlids will be done with their quarantine period, and then I'll be done for awhile! :-)