"LM" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

today, when I was looking at my fish, I found one small white spot on
back
of one of my otos... hmm... I'm HOPING it's not ich, but it's likely
that
it is..

It will get worse or it will go away. For a single white spot, I would
just wait & see which way it goes.

Now I know I need to run to the nearest LFS and get some drugs within
the
next day or so, but here are my questions that I was hoping to get:

1. which is the best medication on market? are otos sensitive to
certain
types of medication? (I assume I need to treat the whole tank anyways)

IMHO, Ottos fall into the class of fish whose hardiness is all over the
map, like Neons. They are either very fragile, or very hardy. Their
most fragile moment is probably immediately after introduction into a
different aquarium. If you treat for Ich, it will be the entire tank.
Usual medications are formaldehyde, malachite green and
benz..somthing-or-another green. They all seem to work, but being
somewhat old-fashioned, I'm accustomed to using something with a high
percentage of malachite green.

2. one of my little whiteclouds had an "accident" over the weekend and
has
an injured head (not quite an open wound I don't think, but has injury
on
his head... I'll post story on r.a.f.m later if you're interested..).
will
the ich medication hurt it?

WCMs & Ottos are small and relatively fragile (due to their size).
Fungus might be a secondary contagion to a wound in their scales, but I
would not be unduly worried about a healthy fish in a healthy tank at low
fish loads. Remember than medications will also stress fish, so their
use should be given a 2nd thought when very small fish are involved.

3. I have plants that are copper-sensitive... do common medication
contain
copper that I need to be aware of?

It will show up on the ingredients. iirc, copper based treatments have
been used successfully on parasites such as Ich, but I would avoid them
like the plague.

4. can I treat it without raising temp? (or is this just for sal****er
treatment?) I have whiteclouds, and they won't like temperatures much
above
78F...

I would not raise the temp, and would decrease the amount of light
reaching a medicated tank (leave the light off for a couple of days, the
plants will think it is cloudy outside and take a few days off from
pearling (every organism can use a break ;~). Seriously, some Ich meds
will be deactivated by light, others will not.

5. after medication, do I need to use carbon to clean it, or some
drastic
water changes enough to dilute the medicine? (how toxic is it to fish)
How
do I know that the medication is all filtered out? (will be using
aquaclear200 powerfilter on a 37G)

IMO, a normal 20% water change, followed by a fresh carbon insert should
do the trick. My understanding is that it's toxicity does become a
concern with long exposure. Whenever I med small fish, I go to full
dosage in increments, (1/2 dosage, then another 1/2 after 6-8 hours).
Ich does have to be treated in a manner which catches their life cycle.
I have _many_ Ich URL treatment sites _if_ you need them because the Ich
started getting worse.

I have white clouds, gold danios and otos in a very densely planted
tank...
the tank is kept at around 76F.

The lower the fish load, the less likely the Ich can get a hold of your
fish, but this is all just my opinion, and everyone has opinions ;o).
Mine just come before the morning )

NetMax

thanks for any suggestion you can offer!

linda