Fish Health Help Please. I'm Stuck

 . Hello.
Ok I'm hoping someone can help me shed some light on some fish issues.  I have 3 rams abd 2 are gold rams.  I have 3 rainbow dwarfs, 1 sword tail, 1 tbar cichlid , 1 golden nugget plec abd 3 loaches Oh and one apistogramma.
The prob seems to be with the 3 rams and 3 rainbow dwarfs.  They all seem to breath very fast with mouth and Gill movements. When I brought the dwarfs home 1 seemed to have a white grown on his chin/lip. I honestly thought he just had an abnormality. It's still there but then another on got 1 on his upper lip. But this sometimes seemed to suck in his mouth and out again. They both looked like cotton wool type growths.  1 of the gold rams when I got him I noticed his lips protrude all the time and both occasions the hold rams were skinny. I made sure they did it but the do look drawn in on the bottom.  But recently the one with protruding lips seems not himself and hides out in 1 corner. Oh abd hes got 1 clamped fin. I do think all the rams have red mouths too. He does eat  though but think he struggles with his mouth. He does seems to have quite red gills. 1 of the dwarfs Gill does look like it's a tiny tiny bit folded back but hard to see as they small. But all the rainbows and rams cause there gills go so rapid the do look but red and open. No I spoke to fish shop and they saud to treat waterline white spot and fungus. I've done 1 full disease and seems to be no improvement on dwarfs mouths. So I called them again.  They said do another dose. But he did say if you can catch the rainbows and can wood the cotton wool bits very carefully with a cotton wool bud then out a daphnia of the fungus treatment on too. I did that and when I put them back in it did seem to have wiped off. However it soon came back like in a day or 2. He did say that rainbow dwarfs are very Scattish and can cut themselves. Mine are scatty. But I've just noticed that my big ram looks like he got 3 white spots above his eyes. They do look like grains of salt. But I'm treating with water life.  Please could anyone have any ideas what it could be or to try. I did wonder if it's internal or Gill diseases but I don't know.  My nitrate nitrite and ammonia are normal levels but I did for a few weeks have very very very low nitrite levels and was suffering with white cloudy water. But that's ok now. 

Thank you
Maria

Hi. Brilliant thank you for that advice. It's good to hear it's a good brand. I'm on my second treatment.  I've done 3 days and got last dose on the 6th day. I was worried about nitrites going up whilst the poly filter wasn't in as I was having a but in there but luckily it's staying down whilst I'm treating the fish. Maybe another disease after this one then. I've got time for more replies before I decide to do another treatment as last dose is sat. Thanks for your reply.
Maria

Do you have any carbon in your filter Maria?

You said you took the polyfilter out, that needs to stay out while you treat your fish.

I think you need to watch your water quality too, nitrites and ammonia should always be 0.

I'm not very familiar with the gold variety of rams; it could just be their colouring. I know that in the natural colour, females develop a pink abdomen when mature.

How hard is the water? Fish can tolerate pH outside their 'normal' range better than they can tolerate hardness outside the range. And pH doesn't necessarily go with hardness - for example, my tap water is moderately soft but my pH is 7.5.

Hello. Right I've tested the kh and gh.

It took 8 drops for the kh to change from Blue to yellow.
And
13 drops for the gh to change from purple to Blue.  I had 2 bottles to use for gh though. I had to add 5 drops of the first bottle then I counted 13 from when I started using the second bottle.

What's your thoughts??

Oh ok. It's bit annoying really as my lfs was involved all the way from me setting up my tank, doing a fishless cycle and buying my first fish abd they never talking about hardness etc when I brought the little gold rams bless them. Yes I know it's also down to me to research but you also rely on them too. The test kit is from my lfs.

Thanks for all your help.

Oh ok. Not good. All my other fish seem happy. I'm wondering to see whether the shop will take them back or whether to keep buying the ro water and using that. Will my other fish be ok with the ro water ? If I do decide to go the ro route, just to check. I do a 20% water change once a week so there for 10% should be ro water and 10% my tap water with my tap safe???

Brill thanks Sue I appreciate the advice

Maria

Hi Maria

I wouldn't use the water from the filter jug as from what I have read from other threads on this site, they replace the chemicals with different ones and these aren't good for your fish.

Sue and her chemistry brain will be able to explain it better.

I suggest you use the search function for a better, sciency explanation.

When I lived in a hard water area I used rain water to 50:50 my tap water. This halved both the hardness (down from 16° to 8°) and the nitrates that Thames Water so kindly sent me (down from 40ppm to 20ppm). If the water butts were dry (or mucky) I used RO which I bought from my local Maidenhead Aquatics at £1.70 for 10 litres. I only have a small tank so bought RO was cheaper than making my own, especially as we planned on moving house in a few years.

I now have 2° very soft water with just a trace of nitrates, courtesy of Welsh Water.