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Hello! I am new to this board and have a bit of a problem right now. I have been wanting to get some blue rams for months now. Each time I go into the lfs, I always ask/look...one person says yes...another no. End up leaving with no rams. So I went into the lfs about 2 weeks ago and to my surprise, there they were!!! A whole tank of blue rams,,, but I couldn't get them that night...so we went back two days later. Well, there was one fish that had white stuff all over it...almost like little cotton patches on the fin, sides...I've never seen ick before but had a sneaking suspicion that it was so we asked one of the guys (kid & only one available at the time) working there and he said NO, NO that's not ick, he's just been beat up by the other fish, fighting for territory. So against my gut instinct I went ahead and got some. I knew I should not but these were the most desired rams that I had been looking for for ever! BTW, the 'ram guru' as he was referred to...who was picking out male and females for me, also said NOT ICK. We brought the rams home and put them in the community tank. About a week ago I noticed one male had white patches on him like the one in the store...couple days later the other male had patches on him. ]:| Dumb, naive me thought they were just fighting for territory (like I was told)..although they are in a 125g tank with plenty of space. I decided I was going to put one pair (male/female) in the 5g for a few days to see if anything changed between the two white-pacthed ones. We fished one out and put him in the 5g and when we went to get the other one out, I noticed that a molly had a white spot on her side. Also, I had a clown loach and it died yesterday...but it didn't have anything on it at all. I figured it died from loneliness since the other clown loach had already died a couple months ago. Do you think it could've been from this?

I've never seen ick before but I am sure this is it. It looks like clumps of salt on the fins and sides. I did about 2/3 water change last night and added one tablespoon of aquarium salt...I ran out or it would've been more. Have to get some more tonight.

My question is: how do I treat this? With water changes and adding salt? How often do I do water changes? daily? Or should I use melafix? My friend had ick in his tank and it took well over a month to get rid of it completely..after losing all his fish and having to clean it completely out.

I really don't want to use chemicals unless absolutely necessary. I have about 50 fish in there ranging from angels, gouramis, tetras, mollies and I don't want to lose any of them. They're my pets & babies!!!

Also, I've ordered some plants for the tank and am wondering if melafix or salt or ick will hurt the plants any. I haven't put them in yet because I am thinking about getting another tank but not for a week or so and in the mean time I was planning on putting them in this tank. Will the plants be ok if I add salt or melafix or whatever I should use??

The water perimeters are all in the good range. Nitrite=0, Ammonia=0, Nitrate=.25

Any of your advice and knowledge will be most greatly appreciated by me and my little fish family..........

Ich really looks like grains of salt...if it looks more like patches then it could be a fungus. If they were fighting for territory and recieved an injury that remained untreated, it's possible that it could have fungused.

If it is grains of salt, therefore ich, melafix wont do you any good. There are plenty of ich meds on the market. I've treated with maracide with great sucess, if you have scaleless fish you may want to consider rid ich +, which has been specially formulated for more sensitive scaleless fish. Treat the entire tank, do not remove the fish to a hospital tank

If it does notlook like grains of salt you may want to consider fungus meds. Jungle labs fungus clear tank buddies, treats both bacterial and fungal fin rot and infections. You can chose to move to a hospital tank if it's just the two that are infected, check all the fish closely though.

Be sure to remove the carbon, and follow all directions exactly. With ich it's very important to treat for the full round of treatment as it's only after the ich has fallen off the fish that the meds will kill it. With any meds, moniter ammonia and nitrite up to a week after finishing treatment to be sure no mini-cycles occur. Melafix will help after treatment with recovery.
Welcome to the site luvylamb24
HTH a bit .

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Thanks, Babs for the reply ..Well, this is not like single grains of salt. Just like a bunch of grains of salt clumped together. Like if salt got wet and clumped up.

Will Maracide hurt my plants any?? I really don't have any place else to put them, just in this tank...

I do remember treating with maracide when I had java fern in the tank.....cant' say 100% if it'll adversly effect plants, but if they're growing strong they should be able to recover from a round of treatment.

If the ich is advanced enough it might look like what you're describing...a picture would help alot, if you can get a pic, upload to a photobucket account or something similar then post the link here.

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[span class="edited"][Edited by Babelfish 2004-09-01 12:32][/span]

I will try to get a photo of it...not sure how good my camera is though... but will try..

Thanks

Hey Babs,
The more I think about it, the more I think that it is probably not ick. I was thinking about it last night and I'm not sure it is ick. Because I was thinking back..Right after I got them, I put some plants in and they seemed to really like swimming around them and the security of them...everything looked fine....but about a week after, the plants were taken out and it is now a pretty bare tank. 1 or 2 days later is when I started to notice the white clumps on one ram and then the other a few days later. (I put the plants in the 5g that has the first white-clumped ram...and he is swimming around all through them now, not looking scared anymore.) I didn't want to stress him more by removing him back into the big tank.

The only thing that puzzles me with that theory is...the molly that has a white spot on it's side. It is only 2 months old and I just noticed it on Tuesday. (The rams both have it on fins, not on sides) Maybe it was weak and the fungus attacking it too? It's definitely not sprinkles of salt.

Anywho, just thought I would add that. I turned the temps up a bit and treated with salt and Ick Away last night. That's the only Ick med I could find. Do you think I should continue using the Ick med or do you think I should switch to something like Melafix?