Fire Eel

[Cat]

Hello everyone.
I have a loverly little fire eel, but I struggle to find much information on the lil'bugger other than the general stuff. I had what I though was ich, i.e a couple of fish appeared to have one or two little while 'dots' on there fins and the eel had a couple. None of the fish were behaving irregulary (rubbing or flashing) but I thought better to be safe than sorry so I upped the temp and added salt for a couple of weeks and did some big water changes still noticed them in the same places on the same fish so after doing another big water change I decied to use shop bought treatment instead. Now I have read about how a lot of these cannot be used with eels and they are harmfull. It was a dye based one specificaly for Ich but it wasnt malachite green. The box said it was suitable for ALL Salt and Freshwater fish and plants so I used it thinking if it harms him I will sue for misleading info.
So looking at the little fella over the last week he seems fine, except he has stuff hanging off around his head and cause his head is just poking out of the gravel, I can't work out if itsa just crap from that or I d'unno if its skin or something! He is acting normally so I Im sure its me being para.
But just to clarify what exactly is it that fish like these and catfish can't tolorate in medicene? Also Are plec's affected by medication too?
Thanks

 

[OrionGirl]

It has to do with the tiny scales some fish have--small enough that they are called scaleless. The lack as large thick scales can allow medications to burn the fish, even in the appropriate dose. It sounds like yours is shedding his slime coat--not a good sign, but not a terrible thing either. My peacock shed his slime coat after jumping out and rolling on the floor, and made a full recovery. However--if the temp was up to 86, and the spots never dropped off, this is not ich.