White dots on inside walls of tank and plant

Question
Hi Christopher!

I have a 5-gallon tank with one common pleco and an anubias plant.  Unfortunately, the little guy is really sick from a bad case of ich and has cloudy eyes.  The other three small fish we had in the tank (two feeder goldfish and a guppy)all had the ich and died recently.  The two goldfish were in separate quarantine tanks when they died, but the guppy died suddenly last night without his body looking as bad as the goldfishes. As our tank is only about a week old and I made the mistake of not cycling the tank before adding my fish, I was advised to not add in a medication to further stress out the fish.  I've been performing frequent water changes to try and keep the ammonium, nitrite, and nitrate levels low and to try to combat the ich.  I have also added some Fritz-Zyme #7 and some Am-Quel to try to help out the situation.  However, I noticed today that there are white dots on the inside walls of the aquarium and on the leaves of my anubias plant - the dots aren't moving and are very small.  Could you please offer any advice or insight into the situation? I'm getting a lot of conflicting advice from different sources and I don't know what I should do to solve the problem and save my pleco.  Please help! Thank you!

--Patsy

Answer
Patsy-
You've got bigger problems.  Your problem stems from the pleco.  They produce enormous amounts of waste and are recommended for only 30+ tanks.  Because of its small confines, it is release massive amounts of ammonia into the water, which weakens the other fish, making them very susceptible to to disease.  Combine that with the bacteria bloom or "new tank syndrome", and you've got ammonia that is off the chart.  

I'm going to start by saying this is going to be a lesson learned.  While the pleco may survive these toxic conditions, the best thing for the fish would be to give it away to someone.  Your tank cannot hold a pleco to size, and its not good for it.  Do not use feeder fish to cycle a tank.  They require different parameters, and will cause an imbalance.  Guppies make great starter fish.  They are hardy and will help cycle your tank.  The fact that your guppy died is an indication of the toxic conditions in the water.  You should also get a test kit that can test for ammonia and nitrates.  Cycling is a  slow process and will take 3 weeks+ to complete.
As for the white dots, thats water hydra.  They probably came with the plant, because hydra feed on plant roots and are often transfered into their new aquariums.  Don't worry.  They will die off quickly in this environment.  But to speed it up, add some aquarium salt.  I know that this is time consuming, but continue with the water changes, your tank will cycle soon enough.  Use the test kit to help you find out when the water is safe.  Then you can start adding more fish.  Hope this helped.  Good luck