Was the "quick cure" a tablet or liquid? Alot of ICH treatments are malachite green & formalin (formaldehyde). If its malachite green it is toxic to humans(a carsinogen) so be careful getting it on you as well as treated water. Formalin reduces oxygen in the water. Alot of these medications also advise turning up the heat in the water to speed up the reproduction of ICH to kill it. This also reduces oxygen in the water the combo of the 2 can sometimes cause bigger fish to suffocate. Both malachite green and formalin can also harm your bio-filter. This is my first guess. Alot of people who use these treatments have said their catfish died shortly after, also tetras. I guess thats why you used the 1/2 dose you stated. Another possibility is the cat munched on the tablet if thats what you used. I guess you meant you removed the strainer from the filter intake? If so that wouldn't help flow unless it was clogged. A good way to improve flow is using a bottle brush on the intake tubes and takeing out the impeller and useing a nail brush to remove build-up. Also rinse the filter cartridges with aquarium water that was removed durring maintainance. Is the cement brick in the tank? I assume you mean "ammonia ok, nitrates ok so on" that the Ammonia, and nitrite is 0.0 ppm and the nitrates are below 40ppm. Always remove the rock wool from potted plants. I know it says its "safe" for fish but it is known to cause gill irratation. I recently successfully treated ICH with salt and raising the heat. I like this way because it wont harm your bio-filter. I can give you a link for instructions if you want or search it yourself. To be honest I would do a quick search on yahoo or go directly to about. com. People at petco give crappy advise.

Woeisme, I so appreciate your help. It was a liquid, Super Ick Cure by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals inc. after I called the company and asked for advice. Heat was mainted at same level, about 80 degrees... and I finally realised just a few days ago that the mineral wool is horiffic and removed from all tanks... the albino had got himself cought in side of tank between glass and net for babies as they go into hysterics when I try to clean things so added extra plants (fake which I hate but my local store only had bog plants hedges so on which die off and rot, so figured for calming effects fake better then nothing) (now if any one knows how female albanio shark (minnow) could have fry (while on vacation and when I came back many fry) removed them after I realized bali shark is not a vegetarian per petco but was picking them off, (and major consumer to the bones of pleco) so two saved.. younster at petco (comes in as uncle works there) told me the male fertilizes eggs and she can lay them later... haven't found this but only explanation as she is the only one in the tank...so far they look like minatures of her...

intake ok but just wondered if he got injured, dont' think so though.. have tons of oxygen extra air stones fish like to play in it, other plecco doing ok so far... so perhaps rock wool only recently removed and or feeding those extra protein foods a few days before I realized it can kill them.. I have an old Dr Innes book from 30's and thats all I used as a kid, rock salt always worked. forgot to say I had added that and recently for albine which had hurt its area near eye, the tea tree treatment (worked all healed up) again at half dose...

cement brick two halfs are in the tank, but from my research (may be wrong) is ok if outgassed all lime???

Guess to be safe should get rocks from store...

I read in same book above re cories the main cats to get hurt by salt water treatment... they did experiment.. guess I could have taken them out, but not sure if other cats harmed by it or by how much again used less due to this... yes I would like the link and again thanks. sherry

my gut feeling is that plecco got digestive problems due to short term (before I read about it) high protein diet.. might you have a link to their proper feeding care? thanks much again

www.planetcatfish.com is a good site. For some reason it is down else I would give you a link. Maybe try it later or in a day. Plecos love driftwood and rock caves/tunnels. I don't feed mine anything special. I did at first (algae wafers) but found out that he would wait for them instead of cleaning the bottom and glass. Since that was the main reason I got one I never fed him wafers again. But he enjoyed all the algae in my tank. Sometimes if an herbivore eats too much protein from "meat" food they will bloat from an infection but not always.I believe you are right about the Cory's and salt. I agree that removing them and treating them seperatly is a good idea though (treating the main tank using salt). Better not to risk killing your bio-filter that way. As far as the cement is concerned, it is usually OK only in a salt water or rift lake aquarium where the water needs to be a higher pH. Even when using cement in those tanks it is reccomended to "cure" it for 2-6 months in fresh water. Even then it will still buffer the water. I guess the only exception is if you have acidic water from the tap. Then it would buffer up. You dont have to buy rocks from an pet store. Slate, granite and basalt and most lava stone are good to use because they do not affect pH. Limestone, marble and river rock are good but will act as a buffer also. For a precaution boil them for 15 minutes. And of course let them cool down before adding them in. You can get some from home improvement stores for cheap, or just look around where you live for free ones. A cheap source for granite is Home Depot. They have "belgium blocks" that are granite for about $3 a piece. They stack well because of their shape or can be broken into pieces. I like slate for creating caves and tunnels because of its flat shape and variety of colors.