I had this problem when I bought plants from walmart (don't buy plants from walmart) If I were you I would just invest in another heater and increase the water temp. Thats what I did and it seemed to work. Even if you did not have plants anytime you can use a natural solution as opposed to chemicals / medications I would go the natural route.

 

Also clown loaches are very suseptible to Ick but also very sensitive to medications so there is that to consider.

 

Crank temp to 88F for three weeks, done.

 

Cranking the temp to 88 would most likely kill all my plants, I invested too much into them. I dosed the jungle stuff yesterday, and got the temp to about 78 degrees. I'll add another heater to the tank. Should I put it on the same side or opposite side as the other heater? Also, today I noticed that when the loach moves an occasional spore will fall off, is that mean that its starting to die off?

 

Why would it kill your plants? Do you have cold water species or something?

 

Most plants can't survive past 82-84 degrees. Mine are used to 76. I'm going to try and shoot for 82.

 

False. I just got done with an ich battle in my tank at 88-90F and did not lose a single plant. I have done this many times in the past with the same results.

 

82 degrees is not enough to kill ick.

Maracide didn't hurt my plants (crypts, swords, vals, dwarf sag). Your mileage may vary but it worked for me.

 

Ya, but the only problem with maracide is that it contains copper, won't that hurt my plants or fish?

 

Maracide is malachite green and a chemical called chitosan. I'm not chemistry expert but I see no Cu in the Wikipedia description of malachite green or chitosan (C is carbon).

When I dosed Maracide at about 120% of the strength recommended by the package I saw 0 effects on any of the plants I listed and 0 effects on the following fish species: German Ram, Cardinal Tetra, Siamese Algae Eater, Cory Habrosus, Otocinclus Macrospilus. A week after completing treatment I added my Amano shrimp and a nerite snail with no ill effects.

Like I said your mileage may vary. Clown Loaches are sensitive and nothing is guaranteed with them and ich. However of the medicines I have tried Maracide was the best and had no side effects. When treating clown loaches a good practice with ALL medications is to dose at reduced strength multiple times by the way. I would 1/2 dose, then 1/2 dose 12 hours later. Some people will recommend you outright 1/2 dose period.

Make sure you get MARACIDE as there are multiple MaraXXXX products (maracyn, maracyn 2, maracide, and more) and they all come in nearly identical blue bottles that pet stores love to mix up when racking them.

 

Perhaps you guys are right about the tempurature. I just going to get the temp up to 86 degrees. I just thought that since they are used to cooler temps like 76 that turning it 10 degrees higher would hurt the plants. Thanks again for the discussion guys

 

Most plants will easily tolerate a temporary temperature spike for a few weeks. When lakes/rivers/streams decrease in the summer months, aquatic plants need to be able to adapt to the change in temperature of the water (less water = hotter temps) or they won't survive. Some solve this by going dormant, but many just adapt to the change in temps.