i was really stupid. i really thought that plecos were members of the catfish family and i read online that the medicine used to treat ich was fatal to them, but i read the back of the bottle, and it didn't say anything, so i figured maybe this was safe. =[ did this really cause it, or was my pleco just sickly?

I'm so sorry your plec died Which ich medication did you use?

Oh no, I am sorry to hear that you lost him. Plecos are sensitive to alot of meds though. How long did you have him?

Plecs are very sensitive to meds when its comes to ich treatments if a plec is present with ich meds i have used its always recommended to half the dose. Takes longer to get rid of ich but ensures plecs safety.

Or if possible isolate the pleco in another tank and treat him separately if infected. Sorry about your pleco

thanks guys =[ you're all so nice here, i've learned a lot in the two days i've been on this site..

i only had him for about a month, i didn't know that you were supposed to quarentine them for awhile before introducing them into your tank. I feel really responsable for killling him because i was so inexperianced...

but i borrowed Ick Guard from my aunt and used it for about two days, then changed about 25% of my water, and went to nnnnnn and bought QuIck Cure, and only used it about once and they seem all right now.

Shark died in between the doses though, so i think it must have been Ick Guard that did it. =/

I guess if you are treating ich, you used medicine with Malachite Green in it, Malachite green works very well against ich and parasite. But it can be dangerous, it can be toxic. It kills parasites but also the BB bacteria. Pleco is not scaled fish so they are extremely sensitive against it. So usually if treating it, have to use alot less than what you would treat other scaled fish.

I'm sorry for the lost.

...I thought plecos were catfish?

Yea, they're a type of catfish, a type that is susceptible to ich treatments and heavy salt levels unfortunately.

emptybrkneyes. Keep up on the water changes, ich can be a pain to get rid of.

yeah i knew it was a catfish, Shark died beacuse i just had a huge brain fart and i guess had too much confindence in my fish and the medicine. =[

I'm sorry about the lost fish. Sharks are neat fish, plecos too.

I hope you can get rid of the ick now, at least.

thanks, i sure am trying.

but blah. my sailfin molly is being a butthead about letting go of his parasitic buddies. he's the only one in the tank that has it still, i don't understand how the parasite can be free swimming, and only attatch itself to one of my fish. he never seemed unusually stressed or unhealthy before, i'm just...clueless.

Quick Cure is a difficult and harsh one to dose and treat with. There are so many precautions, and even more with plecs because they live in higher water temps than goldies. As the water temp rises Quick Cure becomes so much more dangerous. Here, I pasted this farther info over from another thread for you:


Be careful with products that combine formaldehyde with malachite green - the sole 2 ingredients in Quick cure. These are two of the most caustic and potentially toxic 'medications' out there are and need to be used with extreme caution; plus there are so many precautions with each.

For example, lights should be off throughout treatment or the whole treatment will be ineffective and the ich will not die. The blue disappearing so fast suggests you have lights on & the meds are oxidising.

Secondly, formaldehyde (and therefore Quickcure) is temperature sensitive and must not be kept in the fridge or at a temp below 40F (5C) or it is transformed into paraformaldehyde which will kill fish instantly. It should also never be used in tank water over 70F (21C) a temperature many people keep their tanks at- but at this temperature the dose becomes MUCH more toxic to fish. There are long term side effects of overdose and the carcinogenic risk increases. Formalin is a known carcinogen. You should avoid skin contact with the product and wear a mask to avoid breathing vapors.

Formalin is an algicide so it will destroy all plants. For every 5mg used of Quick cure 1mg of dissolved oxygen will be removed from your tank water so unless you at minimum, triple oxygen source during treatment, fish will suffer from low oxygen levels which will impede recovery and immune response.

Malachite green (although it is actually blue ) is equally toxic with equally many precautions. Also a suspected carcinogen and tetragen, oxidises with light, and lethal if dosed incorrectly. It will kill your cycle instantly. So daily monitoring of water is absolutely essential.


I hoope this helps for another time and again, Im really sorry about your plec.

thanks for the help

i'm scared now for my lil fishy =/ but he seems all right, even after the treatments..
how long should it take until he's cured? the directions on the bottle said two to three treatments, but i think it's been that already and he still has white spots.

aww < ihope he will get better soon, i'm treating my whole main tank with ich now! Urg, but after 2 days of treating ich and i read on the koko'sgoldfush page diseasse treatment, about turing off hte light or cover the whole tank up, and so I did and after 2 days most of the white spot are all disapear.

I hope your fish will get better soon...hope mine will get better soon -____-''

=[[[[ my molly died. i think i might have overdosed them, him and my other molly. but my one is still alive, so some unknown reason he just, won't give up, he's gone through near freezing temperatures and now being overdosed, he's like, a miricle fish.

i gave my molly a nice toilet funeral though, and i'm really going to miss him =/

Sorry for your loss.

Could it have just been the stress from ich that killed him, or do you know you overdosed the tank?

i'd like to think it was just the stress, no matter how bad that sounds, but i have no clue. i did put a drop for every gallon, but i think maybe it got too warm or a drop or two got by without me noticing them...

=[

every drop for every gallon, i dont know sounda bit to much, is it something with Malachite green, if you dont follow the careful procedure of treating fish with it, it can actually be toxic. It is toxic. I'm sorry for the loss, Malachite green can actually be pretty harmful to human as well. That shows how strong it can be, and if you add to much constantly can also shock the fish with medicine or chemical.

it said one to every gallon, and i'm praying to god that none of my fish ever get ick again, that was an aweful experiance, for me and my fishies

Tell me about it, my whole main tank got infected by Ich, and so i treat it with something containing Ich away with all light off and the tank is dark throughout the whole rtreatment which was about 4 days, then i did water change, msot of my fish almost die(if you want you can read the horror section where i posted it) and guess what? today i got home fro mschool and WAALLAA all my fish have ich again, badly, it's all voer them, fins, body everywhere. really driving me nuts lol. But i decide to treat it with salt this time. Just becareful when using Chemical to treat ich liek Malachite green, it really need to be taken serious or else it can be harmful to your fish especially small fish. You should try to reduce it down. I treat my whole main tank which is 55 gallon with only like 10, then a1 or 2 more drops of the medicine that contain malachite green, and it works great, that is all I needed...I wonder why they call it green..lol it's obviously blue lol

ah yeah that would be aweful...but i agree and i've decided that if my fish ever have it again i'm using salt and heat, i don't want to risk killing them, especially since i have a couple really small fish in my tank.

and yeah haha it is really blue, silly, colored blind people.

Yea, ich is a nasty thing to deal with. Fingers crossed the rest of your fish stay healthy for ya. Make sure you keep up on your water quality. Also, you can add carbon to your filter to remove the meds if you haven't already.

yeah i added carbon, i have a filter that has the insert thingies..

and hopefully very soon i can get seperate tanks for my platies and mollies so they'll be happier, and my goldfishes can have the big tank all to themselves...

does anyone know how large mollies get? and if the one gallon per inch rule works for them? that seems a bit cramped, i think i'll just get a big 30 gallon and add them, since one of my platies is ready to burst with babies.

Depends on what kind of mollies you get, can range from one to three inches. One gallon per inch is a pretty rough guideline more than a rule.