Pearl Gourami with white spot. Help please!

[frannyscho]

45gal tank. Done one treatment on whole tank, the original white spot on his back which was largeish has gone down, but a few shady areas on his tail. None of the others seem to have it ...yet... BUT I was just about to do a second dose and there are now new and large numbers of molly fry just born, so can i still do the four day later treatment in that tank?

I have a few options
1) treat the tank and risk the fry coz I am scared of moving the gourami coz of damge to the long floaty feeler thingys, plus the others might have it anyway even if I can't see.
2) I have a smaller tank, but it would mean taking out the guppies and the bristlenose catfish, putting them in the big tank and risking them catching it, and swapping them for the sick gourami and treating him in the 6.5 gal. Would the shock of moving to a tiny tank be greater than the isolation treatment value or the fry risk?
3) I could just move the fry to the little tank, but severely overcrowding it temporarily, and risking giving that smaller tank the itch.

Must do something today though...who do I treat?...any thoughts please?

 

[WILDER]

Are you sure it's whitespot as that tiny grains of salt on the fish and it doesn't sound like whitespot in the thread, sounds bacterial to me with his damage to his feelers.

 

[frannyscho]

Fairly sure, they looked like 2 grains of sugar on his back, they went down after the first treatment, but there are areas on the tail which look as if they could become more. I had them on the platy once that looked the same.

There isn't any damage to the feelers yet, I was scared of doing any by moving the fish, from the net, they are so long and dangly. I think I have decided to treat the big tank with the fry still in because being cruel, they are replaceable. Plus I can't be sure they won't get it anyway. Survival of the toughest and all that....the slightly older platy fry didn't die from the first treatment, these new molly fry are only one and a half days old though.

 

[sylvia]

Treat the whole tank and risk the fry. You can't re-arange your stocking while you have ich as you need to assume the whole tank is infected. Ich has a free-swimming stage when it isn't visible and also a stage where it latches onto a host (again it isn't visible) and can remain dormant indefinitely (which is when it's usualy first introduced to the tank). The medications available treat it in its free-swimming stage so you must continue treating the tank until all sign of actual ich spots is gone and for a few days beyond that as well. Molly fry are quite big and hardy. I think they can handle most ich meds anyway and if they prove me wrong there's always the next batch.

 

[frannyscho]

Thank you. It's always nice to have back up on a plan.