With ich being a constant threat to all types of aquariums, we constantly see fish keepers reaching out and asking various questions about how they are able to treat ich in a wide range of different situations.
One of the more complicated situations where you may be looking to treat ich in your aquarium is if there are sensitive live plants, corals or anemones in your tank so it is easy to see why we see so many people reaching out and asking for advice on the best ich treatment for planted tanks.
Due to seeing so many people reaching out and asking for help with suitable ich treatments for planted tanks and there being so much poor advice on treating ich in a planted tank on social media, we wanted to publish our own article going over how you should be going about treating ich in aquariums with sensitive plants.
Depending on your exact setup, the chemical-based treatments, especially any with copper are totally ruled out as they will harm your plants and this is a pain as they tend to be the best treatments for ich in fish.
If you do have sensitive fish in your tank then trying to quarantine the fish that is suffering for ich in a separate tank and then treating it with a treatment like Super Ich Cure can be a great work around.
It offers your fish the best possible treatment against the ich breakout without putting your live plants at risk.
As we covered in our article on treating ich in yellow tang or blue tang, not all fish can be safely quarantined though and the catching process may cause more harm than good so we will be covering some plant safe ich treatments below you can try.
The Best Ich Treatment For Planted Tanks!
The best ich treatment for a planted tank has to be the Ich Attack treatment that has been specifically designed to be an all natural ich treatment that is safe to use with a huge range of plants.
It has an excellent reputation amongst fish keepers who have live plants in their tank due to its low price, ease of use, and high success rate in treating ich.
One thing that we would make our readers aware of is that even treatments like Ich Attack that have excellent reputations within the community are still not suitable for use with some plants.
Although the majority of commonly kept plants in planted tanks should be fine, sensitive corals and anemone can have issues if you use Ich Attack in the tank.
We have seen some people use the rule of using Ich Attack to treat ich in their tanks that are not reef tanks and this can work well but it really will come down to the specific tank setup that you have as well as the live plants that you have opted for.
Thankfully, there are some other options that you are also able to try to treat ich in a planted tank too.
Try To Increase Tank Temperature!
Increasing your tank temperature to the high 70s or even low 80s can be a reliable way to treat some of the weaker ich strains but some ich parasites are able to live at these higher temperatures without issue.
A large number of fish keepers who keep planted tanks simply ramp up their water temperature to deal with the ich breakouts in their tanks with many having excellent results.
The problem with taking this route is that you have to factor in the valid water parameters and water temperature ranges of all living things in the tank.
This ranges from your snails and shrimp to your fish and amphibians to your live plants with it sometimes being difficult to increase water temperature to some levels due to sensitivity in the recommended water temperatures for what you keep in your tanks.
One problem is that the more sensitive plants that can have problems with you using Ich Attack to treat the ich breakout in your tank are also the ones that can have problems with you increasing your water temperature too.
This is why many people who keep planted tanks will try to quarantine their fish to an isolation tank without any other living things in it to use a treatment like Super Ich Cure to treat the ich as quickly as possible.
Is Super Ich Cure Plant Safe?
Super ich cure is not marked as plant safe and can cause problems with some plants while being fine with other plants.
There are mixed reports of using Super Ich Cure with some types of plants too with some saying it is fine to use where as others say it caused problems so we usually recommend that you don’t take the risk.
In our opinion though, Super Ich Cure is the best ich treatment on the market right now by far and its reputation among the fish keeping community seems to back this up.
The most common way that you can use Super Ich Cure to treat ich in your fish is to quarantine them into a bare tank and then apply the Super Ich Cure as required but this is not suitable for all fish species.
We constantly see people recommending that you try Pimafix to treat ich in planted tanks but as we covered in our article going over using Pimafix for ich, Pimafix was never designed for use in treating ich.
Although it is an excellent treatment for many common problems with various fish species, it usually does little to nothing to treat ich but still, we constantly see people recommending it on social media over and over again even though API clearly say that it is not an ich treatment on its label.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over the best ich treatment for planted tanks to a close. We hope that we have been able to help you better understand the options available to you in treating ich breakouts in your fish if you keep a planted tank. The best route to take will always be quarantining the fish away from your plants and using a full strength ich treatment if possible but you can often use Ich Attack to treat ich in a planted tank without having to remove the fish or increase the water temperature in the tank to deal with the parasite.
