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I have a 55 gallon tank that I has 6 swordtails I used to cycle (I've had them for about 2 weeks now). I noticed they had cottonmouth, so I did a week of treatment w/ MelaFix and PimaFix, which ended last Saturday.
Yesterday, I removed the UGF in the tank (don't want it since I'm going to have live plants) and did a 20% water change. I'm guessing I stressed them out way too much
Water testing shows no ammonia or nitites, just a small amount of nitrates....pH is about 7.2, water is on the softer side. Which was the same prior to the change too.

Here is my question...when I got home last night, I noticed some white specs on a few of my females, mainly on fins and a few on the body. My fish are always active, but a male and a female have both been laying on the bottom of the tank (and under rocks) since last night...they come out to eat though.
Also, I have noticed some of them have had some very long white poo strings hanging from their bodies.

Does this sound like ick? Any other ideas?
I bought some Maracide Concentrate today and started treating w/ that. That seemed like the best one at the store, the other ones had one time treatments which didn't sound too good to me (but what do I know!).

(I edited this, I had written Maracyn Plus for the med by mistake)


[span class="edited"][Edited by crickit99 2004-08-02 19:13][/span]

[span class="edited"][Edited by crickit99 2004-08-03 12:08][/span]

Maracyn plus is a super antibacterial ( antibiotic) but would have little to no effect on ich. I would suggest Kordon's Rid-ich plus, and possibly a gradual increase in temperature.

"Maracide" is actually a parasite med made by m,ardel labs. . . manufactured by the same people as Maracyn plus, but it's a totally different product. It's good stuff and will kill the ich fast if that's what it truly is.

The stringy poo is making me think you might have an internal parasite at work here too. Do the white spots look like little grains of salt?

A good product that would get rid of both of these problems at once is Jungle Parasite Clear tank buddies. You can get it almost anywhere and it really works well.

I am on day 3 of treating the tank w/ the Maracide, and I lost one of my females (but I don't know the cause).
The white specs have disappeared except for 1 on one of the females. But they were just tiny white specs on the fins (few on body) The one that died didn't show any extrnal signs of anything.

They have always been very active, but more of them are laying on the bottom of the tank and hiding under the slate.

They are all eating well, and I bought some better quality flake food and some brine shrimp at my LFS on Tuesday (she didn't think much about internal parasites). They like both! But I am still seeing the long, unbroken white waste. Also, I noticed one's was translucent this morning as well.

I read about the Jungle stuff today and thought about getting some. But since I am using the Maracide, I thought maybe I should wait until that is complete. I don't know about mixing them.

Christina

Oh yeah, I have noticed 1 of my female swordtails has a white patch under her mouth and gill area... It isn't raised or fuzzy....just looks like no pigmentation or something...but it's not coloring as it seems to have changed shape. Any ideas on that?