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I am having difficulty beating a white spot problem on my mega clown plecos. I recently lost my zebra and queen arabesque plecos to this same illness and have been treating the mega clowns for three days now with Quick Cure-a formalin malachite green medication- 1 drop per gallon daily. The spots have only gotten worse. The male is fanning eggs and I have included a picture of him taken 30 minutes ago. I have no clue why they dont seem to be getting any better and was curious if anyone has any ideas as to what I might be doing wrong or what disease this might be. I thought at first this was ich but the QuickCure doesent seem to be making a difference. I read an earlier post entitled "need help, ich treatment is NOT working" where someone suggested that this might be chilodonella for that fish in that situation. Does anyone know if this might be what I am dealing with here? I have included all of the pertinent info below.

1. Water parameters
a) Temerature range-86
b) pH.6.7
c) GH 0-1
d) KH 3
e)Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
f) Water change frequency- daily 25% 50%ro/50%tap

2. Tank set up
a) Size.20ghigh
b) Substrate.bare bottom
c) Filtration.ATI#5 w/ rio powerhead and another sm sponge bubbler
d) Furnishings-various slate caves and a terracotta cave
e) Other tank mates-mega clown pair only
f) How long has it been set-up? just over 2 months
g) When was the last new fish added? just over 2 months ago
h) Foods used and frequency? frozen blood worms, 1-2 pea size portions at night and the occasional shrimp pellets

Whitespot can be difficult, and the parasite is only affected by medication when it's in freeswimming mode - the spots on the fish will go away when they are "mature", and at that point, the parasites will get affected by the medication. Keep following the instructions on the medication, and keep medicating until it's gone.

--
Mats

I am sure you saw my post in the other thread noting my success with http://www.thatpetplace.com/ick-guard-tabs-8pk
Active ingredients are Victoria green and acriflavine. If you have been through a full treatment course with Quick Cure (formalin and malachite green) and not had success curing the disease, I would seriously consider a second treatment regime with a different product using different active ingredients.
-Shane

Thanks for your responses. The instructions on the quick cure seem to suggest to treat for three days and, of not cured, treat for another three days. Would you say a "full treatment course" is 3 or 6 days?

The best way to go about it is to raise the temperature to about as high as they can handle (81*-83*F)for a week or two. It will speed up the life cycle of the organism and make treatment both more effective and quicker. QuickCure is pretty harsh, they would probably handle a bit of salt in the water better than they would handle the QuickCure in combination with the heat.

Also if you have any carbon in your filtration you need to remove it while you are treating the tank.
Otherwise the carbon will just take the medication out of the water

Oh,
this could get worse. Turn any lights off (light reduces the effect of the cure) and raise the temperature to 30 degrees Celsius (that kills ichtyo) . Than change water as much as possible.
I will keep my fingers crossed.

Regards

Thanks all, I already keep the temp at 86 and was warned not to use salt with the quickcure treatment. I already tried the salt/heat method but that didnt seem to solve the problem. The male, in the pic., seems to have improved since last night. Ill keep you posted.

The male is all clear today and I assume the eggs he is fanning have hatched because one escaped, so I put it in a tumbler. The female still has a few spots on her but she is looking much better. Thanks for all your help.

Its a miricle these fry survived everything!

So happy for you!

You're not out of the woods yet. Remember that ich has both the visible white spot stage and the microscopic stage where it travels to infect other fish. This is the part of the life stage where ich is actually affected by treatment. Good luck!

Everyone was visibly clear by the end of the day on April 3. When should I stop treating them?

guysmiley wrote:Everyone was visibly clear by the end of the day on April 3. When should I stop treating them?

You need to treat for a few more days for sure to make sure you've completely eradicated the ich. If you don't see anymore spots on your fish after 5 days or so you should be good. GL.

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