Fish had ich..Then turned to zombies?

[Queen_of_Red_Lions]

I have a tank of gouramis who all recently got a larger home. Two dwarves had a little bit of ich, so I kept them in the previous tank and began medicating them. I know I've done everything correctly because I've had to do this before and I have a decent amount of experience. Despite the fact that I've been medicating them for about two weeks, their ich has not gone away, but I assume it is because they are weak, and that is not my concern anyways.

They slowly have gotten extremely weak and constantly stay at the top, like they are suffocating, despite there being filtration. Over the last few weeks, they've gotten more and more lethargic, hardly moving, looking quite dead until something disturbs them and they swim away erratically and very quickly, proving they are not dead. I have continued to offer them food, but I do not think they have eaten since they got sick. I have no expectations that they will live, and am going to euthanize them tomorrow using the clove oil technique. Tonight I noticed the colour on one's tail fin seems to almost be draining and leaving a bloody red line where it is moving up the fin, but I do not think it is fin rot. There are no visible injuries on either fish, neither are pale or otherwise looking malnourished, so I am at a loss as to what could be going on. Like I said, I know they are going down, but I am curious as to what is going on. Has anyone had any experience with something like this?

Also as a side note, out of all of my fish, only my dwarf gouramis have gotten ich, even though they come from the same tank, so I have a feeling they are more prone to it.

 

[BestFishFriend]

I don't think it is only your fish. I had a blue guppy that got ich and he slowly suffered. He did exactly what you fish did. He would not move or eat. He died a few days later(Bless him!). Sadly, the fish do sufocate. the ich will get in their gill even though you can not see it and will grow. One way to help them is to do a 50 percent water change everyday until they get better.

 

[Queen_of_Red_Lions]

Ah, you know, that actually did help. I completely forgot about ich getting into the gills, I guess that would explain it. The ich medication I was using did say to do a 50% water change daily (Which I dutifully performed) as well as add more medication when you do it, but it must have been ich combined with something else, or who knows what. Thanks for that little bit of information, though.

 

[Lotus]

The red streak sounds like septicemia. It could be a secondary infection that started because the fish were already weakened by ich. Which medication did you use? Are you absolutely sure it is ich and not velvet or a bacterial infection?

 

[Queen_of_Red_Lions]

Lotus, the medicine I was using is Jungle "tank buddies" ich medicine. I am as sure as I can be that it was ich because I've dealt with ich before and it met all the descriptions. I think something about the medicine makes the fish very lethargic, because I now have two other dwarves with ich and they don't seem to eat while they're being medicated, despite looking otherwise fine (aside from the receding ich)

I noticed before one of the other dwarves died that his feelers looked like the tissue had been eaten or otherwise destroyed by possibly bacteria or whatever caused it, and all that was left were thin pieces of what I assume were cartilage, and the edges of the remaining feeler tissue were bloody. Does that sound like the infection you mentioned?

 

[Lotus]

Septicemia usually shows bloody streaks on the fish. It can be accompanied by white patches or open sores. It's bacterial, so an antibiotic treatment would be best.

If you've been treating for two weeks with no improvement in the ich, I'd say it's time to change treatments. Either a different medication, or the salt and heat treatment. My preference is for CopperSafe. If you do decide to change treatments, do a large water change and run fresh carbon (or a new filter insert) for 24 hours to remove the old medication.

 

[BestFishFriend]

Ich usually lasts for only a week at the most! Two weeks means it may be something else. I use the jungle medication too, and it did not do anything the first two days. My two fish out of three got better, but one just got worse. Maby the jungle medication is not the best...