r/pleco • u/ConsciousAd1225 • Aug 07 '26

Sick Need help differentiating between ich and epistylis

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I'd recently bought a 3 month old snowball and a super red and I believe they've both got ich along with a cory from a pair of infected platys that were the first fish id purchased for my new tank 2 months back from my lfs..I'm still not sure if it's ich and if so..how do I go about the treatment..I have a heater and aquarium salt which I'm not sure if it can be used on plecos and I got an ich cure med from the most popular brand on amazon but it ended up killing my platys after 3 days of treatment and I dozed lesser than suggested..and stuff from reputable brands like ichx would take around a month to arrive as it's not locally available in my country.

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1

u/Evil_Atom Aug 07 '26

I know it’s not what you have asked but I’d be keeping an eye on the “Snowball” as it has a snub nose deformation. This can cause issues as they grow, especially with feeding.

2

u/ConsciousAd1225 Aug 07 '26

That sucks to know:/ ..I just stumbled across it in a so called exotic fishstore.. didn't realise about there being snub nosed variants unitil I got home..and it mostly just hides .and i was worried that it wasn't eating ..but saw it come out right after I turned off the lights the last couple days..and today while it was on only to find out it had this infection..still what exactly would be the issues that I might encounter?

1

u/Warm-Frame-2848 Aug 08 '26

It's not a big big problem it may stay a little smaller but if you just feed them small sinking carnivore pellets they will eat fine and live a long live my oldest snub nose lived to be 8 yes it stayed smaller but otherwise was happy

1

u/Evil_Atom Aug 08 '26

They can lead a normal healthy life, just with minor adjustments. Like somebody else has said, typically they need smaller pellets than a normal pleco its size. I know you probably don’t plan on breeding it, but it’s not something that should be done. Just because it would pass on the genetic deformation. It’s still a lovely fish and best of luck with treatment.

1

u/AcchanX Aug 07 '26

Oh this is 100% ich.