Clown Loaches with Ich Mystery

It's a sad day for me. My last clown died before me. I think I
accelerated its death by placing it in a hospital tank.

I immediately took a skin scraping and viewed it under a microscope.

Under 40x magnification I saw clearly round cells with a worm like thing
inside. In Untergasser's Handbook of Fish diseases, this matches the
photo of Ichthyophthirius multifiliis.

That's not the end of the story. Further on the slide, at 100x
magnification, where I placed this sticky mucous stuff, I saw cells
which are identical to Oodinium. Inside each cell I saw a swirling mass
of dark particles. Around the edge of each cell, I saw something flowing
around it.

I think the ich were on the tail and the oodinium on the main body where
I scraped off the sticky mucous. How about that? Everyone was right.

My LFS sells instant death along with their fish. Must take note of this
for next time.

Time for some Prozac and a nervous breakdown.

Nikki

Anandan Tanabalan wrote:
Nikki,

The photos don't look like Ich that I've ever had.

I'd go down the Velvet route but careful about mixing meds with the stuff
that you've already put in.

One illness will weaken your fish making it more susceptible to others, but
they will also compete against one another for space on your fish.

What is obvious is that your current treatment isn't working.

Moving to velvet meds in your hospital tank sounds best. Smaller water
volumes = less meds but also less stability.

Meds tend to lower how much oxygen is in the water so try to increase
circulation flow-rate or turn-up the venturi on your powerhead.

Tana.