Ich, velvet or other?

[fish_4_all]

1) Red velvet sword, has small grain sizes white spots, gasping for air, lithargic, stays at top of tank or rests on bottom of tank.
2) ammonia - 0, nitrite - 0, notrate - 20, PO4 - 2, temperature steady 78-80, no food change, got illness from LFS.
3) 10 gallon tank, 6 months +
4) HOB AC 20
5) 2 swords, 3 corys, 2 tetra, and 1 pleco, Pleco is under 2 inches
6) 2 water changes, 50% in last week. vacuumed gravel both times, normally change water weekly., 50%
7) had fish 4 month +
8) Nothing new to the tank.
9) no diet change, always feed many food on dofferent days, shrimp pellets, flakes, algae wafers, crab bites, betta bites.

I have been treating with melafix for 4 days now, no noticed improvement. Changed water yesterday and added aquasafe. Added airation today. Also adding salt per dosing on box.

 

[An t-iasg]

It does look like ich from the picture. I don't think velvet will show up too well in a picture. Have you read this article: http://www.aquariumadvice.com/article_view.php?faq=2&fldAuto=32

Members here have had a lot of success with the heat treatment. Turn up your thermometer slowly, like one degree every 8-12 hours, to get the water temperature up to 87 degrees. During the first week of treatment, do a 25% water change every day to remove some of the parasites in the free-swimming stage. I wouldn't use meds for the ich; the heat treatment is successful a great deal of the time. Ich meds will stain your silicone also.

Lower the water level a few inches so that your Aqua Clear filter causes a little splash as the return water comes back in the tank. Warmer water holds less oxygen, so this agitation will help to oxygenate the water. Your fish may be gasping because the ich is in his gills. Hopefully the treatment will help! After the ich is gone (leave the temperature up to 87 degrees for 3 weeks to be sure, and then bring it down slowly) you can try Melafix again if the tail looks ragged.

 

[fish_4_all]

Someone please tell me how long I should continue my treatment of the tank and the fish! I want this gone because I was lucky and didn't lose the whole tank, I don't want this to happen again. I know coppersafe isn't the first accepted treatment but every fish infected would have been dead in less than the week recommended to raise the heat.

I have added a large bubble stone and turned it up pretty high for more O2 in the water. If I would have started to turn up the temperature 6 days ago instead of treating with melafix for bacteria I might have had time to do the temperature treatment. Maybe this time I will learn to watch for it. And I think I will set up a quarantine tank for new fish from now on. I have read coppersafe should be safe for my panda cat, albina cory cat and Julii but if anyone has heard it isn't, please let me know.

Well the Ich, I think now it might have been Ich anyway, is gone off the sword although it killed one of smaller ones. I hate losing fish to a disease from a LFS. Total this time was 4, 3 swords and a guppy.

I added Melafix because the sword that survived and was infected had bad looking fins and it helped very quickly to heal them, less than 6 hours and a noticeable improvement.

The thing that has me really confused is that Ich is supposed to attack scaleless fish easier and faster. If this is true, why did it never show any signs in the cory cats in the same tank nor the plecostomas?

 

[An t-iasg]

The Melafix does work well on tattered fins, but it isn't a parasitic med and won't do much to kill the ich. To make sure the ich is all gone, leave the temperature at 87 degrees for three weeks. For the first week I would do daily water changes of about 20-25% , and then every other day for the remainder of the two weeks.

Raising the heat can be a bit tricky - you want to get the temperature up to 87 degrees so the ich is killed, but raising it too fast stresses the fish, and keeping the temperature in the 82-86 degree range too long just encourages the ich to multiply faster without killing them. I would suggest raising the temp one degree every 8-12 hours, but observe the fish, and if they do not look stressed since your last raise, then try raising one degree every 5-6 hours. This cuts down the time in the temp zone that the ich are most active and moves as quickly as possible to the temperature at which they are killed.

I'm not sure why the ich was not as visible on the plecos or cory cats. But if they were in that tank too, you have to assume they were also infected. Sometimes ich will only infect the gills where it isn't visible to us.