I am treating my main tank for ich with Jungle Ich guard. When is it safe for the snails to come back?

Question

Five days ago, i had an ich outbreak in my main tank so i picked up some Jungle Ich Guard crystals (mostly formalin) at my LFS. I relocated my non invasive snails to a cycled 10 gallon tank and treated at half dose due to the presence of plecos and catfish in my main tank. Today (5 days later), there are no traces of ich so I am planning on ending treatment in 2 days assuming another outbreak doesn't occur. When will it be safe for the snails to be re-introduced and what steps need to be taken to prepare the main tank?

Answer 1

Wait at LEAST a week after all signs of the parasites are gone-- it has a life cycle involving several dormant stages that medications do not affect, and if these hatch out after you end the treatment, they will reinfect the fish.  Also, turning the heat up to a mere 85* is useless for killing Ich (this only stops it from infecting fish... in most cases)-- I. multifilis has been found infecting fish in temperatures as high as 92*, which is a point at which most fish will be so stressed that they will die anyway.  Also, there is no reason to believe that heat would make it into the gravel when medications wouldn't-- both heat and medication disperse evenly thoughout the tank.

In a week, you can begin to remove the treatment with activated carbon and water changes-- after a day of beginning the removal process, you can add the snail back to the tank.  Activated carbon adsorbs impurities on contact, so it will really only take as long as it takes the filter to cycle the tank (gallons per hour) for the medication to be removed (water changes will expedite this process).

Answer 2

should be safe in a couple of weeks after a couple of water changes

but if you do not have an under gravel filter I would advise you to turn the heat in the tank up to 85 degs for a couple of weeks ick lives in the gravel and most meds don't kill it off in the gravel unless you have an under gravel filter raiseing the tank temp up will kill it in the gravel also next time if you just raise the tank temp to 85 it will elimanate the ick and you wont have to move the snails I keep my tanks at 85 because I prevents ick since ick can't live in water that warm