Ulcers

Question
QUESTION: Hey Nick. I have a 10 gallon fish tank with 10 gouramis ( I know I'm pushing it)that I don't just want to flush so I just keep them. I noticed about a week go 2 of the gouramis have little white spots that the pet store told were ulcers. I was given some jungle fungus crap, told to take the filter out of the tank and drop one of those tablets everyday until it cleared. Well around am I decided to check on my lil babies after dropping the second tablet in and noticed all of my golden gouramis had blood shot red eyes. I was so upset I immediately did a 50% water change after 2 days of dropping tablets and put the filters back in. I know I need to get rid of some of these lil guys and plan on doing so in a few days. In the mean time how do I cure these ulcers that are starting to affect my whole tank without burning them to death?
ANSWER: Hi Robin
I saw your question in the question pool, I'm not Nick though-obviously :)

Little white spots....I don't know how the pet store got ulcers out of that description, ulcers are red open sores on the fish....anyway, do the white spots look like the fish was sprinkled with salt?  Or, are they fuzzy/cottony looking?

Christy

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Hey Christy! They are more like fuzzy and cottony. Im now being told its fungus but I dont know! Its not the sprinkled salt type of thing just like white spots on the fins, well more like little white balls. Does that make sense?

Answer
Hi Robin
Yep, kinda makes sense :)  Does sound like a fungus, where the fins/tail looking kinda raggedy, split, or torn before it started?  If so, that would've been fin/tail rot, and the fungus would be a secondary infection to that.  

Or, it could be a bacterial infection called Columnaris.  That one has a wide range of symptoms I'm finding out, some say it shows up as a fungus/cottony growth around the mouth, some say the fish get a greyish coating on their scales with white stringy stuff hanging off them, some say cottony growths on the body/fins....diagnosing fish is so hard sometimes, the only way to know exactly what you're dealing with(with most diseases or parasites) is to get a scraping and use a microscope.  And then you have to know what your looking for...

What I would do, buy this product called PimaFix.  It's a natural remedy, good for treating fungal and some bacterial infections.  Won't harm the fish or the beneficial bacteria in the tank.  Use that for a few days(good stuff to have on hand anyway along with some MelaFix as well)and watch for improvement.  
Also, be sure to do regular water changes, I usually recommend once a week about 25% of the water.  But, your tank is a wee bit overstocked :)  So, I'd do them every 2-3 days at 25%.  Also you can add some aquarium salt, 1 tablespoon per 5 US gallons, that may help with the fungus as well.  Now be mindful that you're removing some of the salt and meds when you do the water changes, so be careful when you redose the tank, so you don't overdose.

If you don't start seeing improvement in a few days, I believe the PimaFix is supposed to go for 7 days, then you'll need to go with something stronger, like what you were using before, maybe cut the dosage so it doesn't cause the problems again.  Or, if you start noticing signs/symptoms like I mentioned above for that columnaris, greyish film, white stringy stuff on the body/fins, mouth problems, then you'll need to switch to an antibacterial med.

For the filter, don't remove the whole filter(I'm assuming you're using a hob filter (hang on the back)?  You only need to remove the carbon.  If it's one of those filter pads with the carbon already in it, you can cut a slit in the blue part and dump the carbon out, then replace the filter pad.

Hope that helps, and good luck!!  Let me know if you have more questions!!

Christy