Treat for ich or wait and see

[Illsavemyself]

I brought 5 Botia Kubotai loches last week (6 days ago). They were brought online so had the issue of a perhaps stressful journey and having to get used to different hardness and pH in water. I drip aclimitised them over a longer time and basically did my best to introduce them as carefully as possible. This included eventually netting them into the tank so that no of the water they arrived in entered the tank with them.

2 days ago one of my loaches died. He looked like he was just resting on his side as loaches do, he had not greyed out at all and his colours were vibrant. I only suspected he had died when a nudge from another fish failed to garner a response. Upon inspection once I had removed him from the tank he did not have a mark on him or any sign of illness, no spots at all.

One of my remaining 4 loaches is shyer than the rest and slightly paler in colour. He is the largest one and spends much of his time in a cave whilst the other 3 are constantly active around the tank. He was the only one who showed any signs of stress when introduced to the new tank, rapid gill movement and general lack of interest in feeding. He came out for the morning feed yesterday morning, stayed in his cave the rest of the day including the evening feed but was again with the other loaches looking for titbits in the substrate this morning.

There is 1 white raised spot above one of his eyes, I cannot see any other spots. His gills may be slightly redder than the other loaches too but am unsure if I am imagining this part. All the loaches have slightly red gills but this may be normal, I don't know.

Should I start treating for ich? I have never seen it before so don't know if I am jumping the gun and being a bit paranoid about my new loaches. None of the other fish in the community tank are showing any signs of infection. The slightly red gills of the other loaches is the only thing I have noticed. One of the other loaches had a single flick at the substrate yesterday but this was a one off only.

If I do treat for ich it would be with Waterlife Protozin as I have fish that could not take a temperature rise method. Therefore I am unsure whether I want to put chemicals in my tank if they are not needed.

A problem I have with the wait and see choice is that I see him so infrequently.

1. Should I treat of wait?

2. If I do treat do I have to remove filter wool as my extra media or is it just carbon that has to come out?

3. Is it still the case that with loaches I give half dose only but can do this every 12 hours rather than every 24 as Proozin biodegrades quickly?

4. Is there any harm in treating anyway as a precaution as half doses should not effect the other fish and it is better to catch this early?

My tank is 200 litre, well planted, with internal filter and Ammonia and Nitrite are both 0 with Nitrate <20.

[Diana]

Hard call.
Ich can infest the gills and you might not see it on the body for another day or two, so if this is Ich you have caught it good and early.
Red gills are a sign of irritation, from parasites or water chemistry. You might do a water change to lower the nitrates some more, but I really do not think the red gills are from the nitrates.

If you decide to treat only the activated carbon needs to be removed from the filter. It will chemically bind up the medicine and remove it from the tank.
If you use other chemical media such as Purigen I would remove that, too.

As you continue treatment gravel vacs will remove fallen Ich from the floor of the tank, and the water changed will reduce the number of Ich that is drifting in the water. I have heard of Ich being cured with just water changes and gravel vacs. This was in a bare bottom tank, however.

[Illsavemyself]

Water changes are done reguarly, my last one being yesterday. 25-30% gets changed weekly. In truth I am not sure what my exact Nitrate reading is as I do these less frequently as tank is well planted. Last one about 10 days ago was around 12ppm and have had 3 water changes since.

So should my loaches not have red gills at all? Seems like this could be another sign that I need to act.

[Illsavemyself]

Just done another set of tests

Ammmonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 6

Very unlikely that I have a water issue.

[Illsavemyself]

The red gills don't look any different really to this from the loaches pictures on this site

http://www.loaches.com/species-index/ph ... 1.jpg/view

They all seem fine at the moment with 1 in the cave and the other 3 digging up my plants. 1 of the 3 is the one I was concerned about but he seems happy enough. I will wait and see for now but would still welcome any advice from anybody who keeps these loaches.