confused about ich

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Solarris

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Sep 10, 2009
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Four days ago one of my dojo loaches died from what looked like ich. My pleco then started showing the white spots. I have immediately raised the temp in my tank to 85 and started treating with Rid-Ich every day along with massive water changes every day just like the directions said. Since then I haven't seen a single spot on any of my other fish but I'm not sure my pleco is getting any better. He's been at the back of the tank all day so I can't get a look at his underside but it looks like there might be fewer spots on top of him but several of the spots have gotten quite a bit larger and look like they may be a fungus, kind of cottony. I'm starting to second guess myself about if this was really ich after all. I really hate the way he looks right now! Any help would definitely be appreciated!
 
Ich looks like someone sprinkled salt on the fish. No joke. Very small distinct dots.

If it looks fuzzy or cottony, probably a fungus. Be sure to remove the carbon filter from your filter when treating the water with medicine, since the filter will filter (duh) the medicine right out. I would replace the filter with a piece of filter floss or something of that nature, so you still have mechanical filtration going on. If it were me, I'd drain some tank water into a rubbermaid container, scrub all the goo off the old filter with my fingers, and rub that goo into the new piece of filter floss/whatever, then rinse in the tank water you have the old filter sitting in. This is so your tank doesn't lose a lot of its biological filter in the process.
 
I'm not running any carbon in there now. I'll try to find those 2 meds tomorrow. Only problem is we only have 1 small pet store anywhere around here. Hopefully they will have those.
 
I am so dumb. I forgot to take my Filter carbon out when treating my High Finned Platy... He's gone now :(
 
Unfortunately when I got up this morning and checked my pleco had already died. Now I'm wondering if the fungus was maybe a secondary infection because he was already weakened by the ich. For a couple days he did look like someone had sprinkled salt all over him.

What should I do now? Should I leave the temp up for a few more days just to make sure there is no ich in my tank? And also should I go ahead and dose with Pimafix and Melafix to make sure none of the other fish develop an infection? They are still looking fine, no signs of ich or fungus on any of them.
 
personally, i would. pimafix and melafix are both natural herbal remedies, and alot of people actually dose both in qt's on new arrivals. I would dose that, keep the temp up, and if you start seeing fungus, maybe drop the temp down some. Also, i would recommend daily water changes of 40-50%. Clean water is always the best thing for fish. Even though both meds say to wait until day 5 or 7 (cant remember), the daily water changes will be best for the fish along with the daily dose of the meds
 
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