What's Are Your Thoughts?

[Tonyp814]

I think I have a case of Epistylis on my hands but I would love some second opinions because I'm not positive. I don't believe its Ick and has none of the behaviors of Ick except for the flashing, so please read through the post before assuming Ick. He was in my main tank and started showing signs about a month ago. It could have been earlier but I had to see him in just the right light to see the multitude of spots. At first I thought for sure it was Ick but I didn't want to expose all the inhabitants in the tank to meds until I was positive.Two weeks later and it was still only him with symptoms and he was behaving normally except for the flashing once in awhile. I did have salt in the main tank this whole time though. Just a small dose for these guys of 1tbsp per 5 gallons. So I then quarantined him and tried higher concentrations of salt and after a week there was no change. I started him on IckX two days ago with daily water changes and redosing. I've also been feeding food dosed with Kanoplex once a day for two days. PH 7.8 - 8, 80° Temp in Qt and main tank, no ammonia or nitrites, keep my main tank under 40ppm nitrates and the Qt tank has barely any nitrates with all the water changes. He is still as of the time of this post acting like nothings wrong. I did treat the main tank with PraziPro about 3 months ago for skin/gill flukes because some got past Qt when adding my Moori Cichlid. Maybe that has some bearing on the current situation. The tank was treated 3 times 1 week apart. Any advice or thoughts, or even criticism would very much be appreciated....Thank You.

 

 Pictures of main tank and male in QT tank.

[Colu]

It difficult to tell whether the spots are raised or flat he how you tell the difference between ich and epistylis if it's epistylis you want to treat with a broad spectrum antibiotic treatment such as maracyn2 in food as kanaplex is poorly absorbed by the intestinal tract and aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 2 gallons if your not sure whether it's ich or epistylis you can do a combined treatment of maracyn2 in food and ick X  and salt to cover all bases @Tonyp814