Ick/mollies

Question
Hi.
I'm completely new and inexperienced with fish.  We have a 5 gallon-tank with 2 mollies,  1 male, 1 female,  and 2 black mystery snails.  Our aquarium came with everything but fish and accessories.  The filter is a Regency.
My male molly presumably had ick.  He had the typical white spots,  and they came up rather quickly.  I cleaned the tank as best as I could,  turned off the filter,  added salt,  vacuumed/changed 25 to 50% of the water daily and treated with Quick Cure,  also daily. I've also added a heater.  The temp is just about 80. It has been one week since I began treatment.  I thought all was well.  This evening I noticed spots coming up on the male molly again.  The female is pregnant.  She's been getting fatter for the two weeks we've had the tank and fish.  
My question is this...how long does it take to rid the tank of ick?  I know Mama molly will be giving birth fairly soon and I don't want the babies (or Mama) to get ick.
Here's another question...
when the white spots disapper from the male,  can I move everyone to a new, clean tank and be rid of the ick?  Is that a bad idea?
Thanks in advance.
Jennifer

Answer
Hi Jennifer;

Rinse the filter media and turn the filter back on. I suspect the stress of having no filtration has caused the fish to become ill again. They need that filter. You can cut open the filter pad and remove the carbon so you can use medicine while the pad is still in there. The carbon absorbs some of the medicine. You don't even really need the medicine though if you use the heat/salt method of curing the ich.

Raise the temperature up to 85 degrees and keep it there for 2 weeks. Ich hates heat. Also add one teaspoon of salt per gallon of tank water. The salt weakens the parasite as it strengthens the fishes' slime coating so the ich can't re-attach to the fish. You may see more spots seem to appear for a few days, but this is because the spots were there already but too small to see. It can't be killed as long as it is protected by being buried in the skin of the fish. Those are the spots that you see. The parasite has to develop and grow enough to burst out the new ones into the water before it can be killed.

Followups welcome

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Chris Robbins

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