White patchy glass catfish

[LauraEverhart]

Hey guys,

I've tried to treat this for over a week now, seemingly to no avail. I guess I'm not failing completely because the little guy is still alive... but he obviously doesn't feel like himself, and for that I feel badly. Might you guys help?

Specs:
35 gal bowfront, set up for about a year now
82 Fahrenheit nitrites/nitrates/ammonia normal
Biowheel + carbon filtration
5 live plants, gravel, slate... good hiding places
Lots of other happy fish
- 2 quarter sized angelfish
- 1 med pleco
- 2 glass catfish (including the sick one)
- 4 neon tetras

He showed signs of one patch... which I knee-jerk thought was ich, and low-dose medicated. Within the next few days, the spots multiplied... and now looks like the picture I've attached. I put him in an isolation tank and tried a little salt treatment (but was scared to do too much considering he's a scaleless guy). He and the other glass cat are VERY paired, so I let him out at night. They like to snuggle under my slate. Not sure if this was the best idea, but he wouldn't eat otherwise, and the other guy seemed pretty stressed without him.

Anyway, I'm continuing the baths with fungus/bacteria guard... but not sure if it's making a dent. I really don't believe it's ich, though some have said his clear body makes it appear differently. Please help!




(Direct link: https://www.aquariumadvice.com/atta...635567_0_3ad85019e4e9abbdeb66be3785a1b933.jpg)

______

Btw, I've been a fish lover since birth. Had a 55 gallon throughout childhood with my dad, and the bowfront for many years even through college. This isn't my first rodeo, but it is my first glassie and there's no room for ego... so I appreciate ANY advice you guys have.

-l

 

[Fishfur]

If you view him from the front or rear, do you see anything protruding from the body where the spots are ? Small bumps might be cysts, which might be Ick.

Consider, we normally cannot see what ich looks like other than the cyst that appears on the skin. If he has cysts then I'd treat for ick. And I'd treat full doses, because if you use lower doses, fearing for sensitive fish, you are inviting the ick to become resistant to the treatment.

This has already happened. Super ick, extremely resistant to heat, salt and all the usual meds. Very hard to treat,, only quinine based meds work on it.

If there are no bumps, or they don't look like cysts, then it might be fungal, or something else. I get you don't want to make him leave his pal, but for his sake and that of the other fish, he needs to be isolated in QT 'til you figure this out.

Fwiw, I recently read a good article on treating ick in catfish. They found that salt works for catfish, and is no more lethal to them than any other treatment, in fact, salt treated catfish did better than the others did. It appears that the sensitivity to salt is more in the long term, rather than the short term, as in a treatment course.