55 gallon. i think 2 of the cichlids are sick.. one looks like he has fin rot mixed it ich..white little spots and fins are rotting away. was using melafix.. decided to a 40%water swap and put in 5 anti fungus tablets. like the directions said.. is that ok or what? what is it and what do i do?

Ich is a parasite. I've had fish with ich and they got secondary ailments which included fin rot.

I've had good luck with Jungle Parasite Clear.

The spots will eventually fall off the fish, sink to the bottom, gestate for a few days, then become free-swimming little buggers that latch back on to your fish. The free-swimming stage is the only stage you can kill them. Raising the temp will speed up the life cycle, ergo speeding up the effectiveness of the treatment.

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By the time you see ich on your fish, they've probably been affected for a while.

Water change and antibiotics would be my first course of action to, but it wont cure Ich.

If the spots are tiny like grains of salt, then you need to use a proper Ich treatment, and follow the instructions exactly.

If the spots are fuzzy and larger, then the fungal medication is probably what you need.

Dont mix different medications, results may be unpredicatable, and fatal. If you decide to switch, do some large water changes to get rid of most of the current medication first.

Check the water quality and filtering, and keep up the water changes. Medications may affect your cycle bacteria and lead to ammonia issues that just make things worse.

Ian