Siamese algae eater sick - Help!!

[Ollie]

A few days ago, I bought 3 platies and I added them to a 20G long established community tank, that had 4 zebra danios and a large siamese algae eater. A day later, one of the platty developped ick. I started a treatment, using 'Rid-Ick+'. After 2 days of treatment, the sick platy seems to be ok, and all others fish are fine, except for the siamese algae eater, who developped ick as well.

Somehow, the algae eater seems to be getting and worse by the day, despite the treatment. His fins are now damaged, and he has ick spots in many places. It seems that as I continue the treatment, his condition is getting worse and worse.

What should I do? I've been treating the water for 4 days and I was expecting the fish to be better by now. Should I switch to a different brand of ick medicine; I thought they all had similar ingredients? Should I increase the tank temp. by 1 or 2 degree (currently at 77 deg.). The only place I could isolate that fish would be a 5 gallon bucket with a heater and small pump for water circulation; should I do that and increase the medicine dosage?

Thanks for any help.

[jhoetzl]

Originally Posted by Ollie

Should I increase the tank temp. by 1 or 2 degree (currently at 77 deg.). The only place I could isolate that fish would be a 5 gallon bucket with a heater and small pump for water circulation; should I do that and increase the medicine dosage?
Thanks for any help.

I'd put the temp to 80 or 82 or even 84 gradually and run an airstone 24/7 till everyone is healthy - this is why we quarantine new fish...

Removing the infected one probably won't help at this point as ick lives in the tank too. So you may get repeat infections.

I'd get that temp raising now...and follow the direction on rid-ick (did you remove carbon?) - and do the full treatment once you have started.

Salt and temp raise would probably have done it...