PlanetCatfish.com

Can you tell me please how salt tolerant L038 Peckoltia sp might be? I am treating her along with some goldfish for ich, with salt & warmer temp.

Ehm, goldfish and peckoltia aren't exactly the best tank-mates in the first place, as goldfish produces an awful lot of waste, so you need get high nitrate levels, this is not a great thing for fancy plecos. Also, goldfish certainly prefer a low temperature season, which also wouldn't be ideal for the pleco you have.

But to answer your question, Peckolta, and most other plecos tolerate intermediate levels of salt, about 1 tablespoon per gallon. Keep an eye on the fish, and if they look unhappy, start water changes.

Make sure you add extra circulation to keep the oxygen levels up with the raised temperature.

Do you know why your fish got Ich?

--
Mats

My nitrates are kept at 10 with frequent testing and water changes. Normal room temps get up to 74-76F, so the tank is only slightly elevated at 76.7F. My tank has no substrate, only a few stones, and some caves for her, plants. So it is easy to clean out all waste. The ich came as a stresser with new additions, not QT'ing for a full 4 weeks, due to someone asking me to take the qt tank down. It couldn't be helped unfortunately.I cannot go into more detail on that. We are on the good side, with the ich now off the fish, and treatment should clear the rest.This pleco has lived with the goldfish for a year, and is doing great, other than this. I haven't experienced ich on fw fish in over 40 years. They are soon all going into a 90 gallon. I have another tank she can go into if you really feel like it is harming her in some way. But I will at least have to wait past the ich cycle.

Glad to hear you are winning the ich war. I see your fish have been together for a while and just wanted to add my 2 cents. I don't know what goldfish you have but I can tell you comets and other commons can tolerate temps from 65-85 degrees with no worries. No substrate in your hospital tank is perfect since the ich will often live in the substrate and re-emerge. Elevated temps don't do anything to kill ich it just speeds up the life cycle allowing you to get results quicker.

Best of luck and a speedy recovery for your fish.

I am about to embark on the ich battle myself, and also have a pleco (spotted rubber lip) in a goldfish tank. Oddly, the spots appeared soon after I began adding salt, to the tune of 1 Tbsp per 5 gal, in a 29 gal tank. The tank is still pretty young, maybe 2 months. I lost a pair of young loaches after treating for what seemed to be a bacterial problem, but beyond that all have been good, including two very young corIes added just this past weekend. Should I add more salt, and possibly bump the temp as well? I am going to use an all-natural treatment, having some shrimp in there as well. (hell, they survived the goldfish for a month, least I can do is not poison them!)

-edited because nobody taught my iPad about even casual fish nomenclature.