Ich, anchor worms, and maybe secondary infection(s)

This isn’t happening in my home tanks.
HOWEVER, I work at a pet store right now, and the goldfish/koi fish unit is a mess. I told the manager back when it was “just” anchor worms in one or two tanks, did a little research, and suggested an anchor worm-specific medication (which we don’t carry, but another store has for $10). He went to his boss, who told him to use General Cure. I told him it wouldn’t work, but he did it anyway. This “treatment” started Tuesday. When I came in Thursday, not only had it not worked, there was now another infected fish on the opposite end of the unit, one of the previously-infected fish had vanished, the other previously-infected fish looked worse (the fin closest to the worm in its gill cover was rotting away), and a bunch of the fish suddenly had ich. According to one of my co-workers, the manager had also added Melafix into the mix on Wednesday—judging by the Melafix bottle, too much Melafix at that. Maybe ich cure as well, since that bottle is suddenly close to empty. IDK.
TL;DR there’s sick fish at work and the manager isn’t helping.
I don’t want these fish to die.
Giving the unit the proper treatment would be risky (for the fish because of the sheer number of meds that’d be in the mix, and for me because for all I know that could get me in a lot of trouble). All I can think of to do is to take the fish to one of my quarantine tanks, treat them myself, and use the live-animal return policy. I don’t have the space to house them permanently.
(I haven’t taken them yet, since I’m not 100% sure what to do with them.)
I know it’d be potentially dangerous to just dump a bunch of different meds in the QT tank at once. The best treatment plan I can think of right now is treating the tank for anchor worms and doing salt or methylene blue dips for the ich/other infection.
I’m debating between Microbe-Lift’s fish lice and anchor worm treatment and CyroPro. The only problem is I don’t know if I’ll be able to return them after more than 14 days (since I’d only be taking them home to treat them) or if I’d have to try and speedrun/cut short the treatment. I could ask one of the other managers when I go in tomorrow. If I’m lucky, I might be able to quickly set up a QT tank at work and avoid messing with the return policy at all, but I can’t count on it.
Here’s one of the fish with anchor worm, on Sunday. (This is the one that disappeared. IDK if you can tell from the pictures, but he looks fine other than the worm.)


Thank you in advance for any help or suggestions!

 

I don't know where you work, what type of pet store and if it's a chain, (and I don't want to know) but might be useful if you pull the "whistleblower" routine to corporate if you are at a chain store.

Tell them the situation, how it's getting worse because people don't know what they are doing, and they won't take your recommendations on how to treat the fish for the illnesses going on and so it's spreading, and that the fish could have been saved but the "hierarchy structure of chain of command overrides actual experience and knowledge for some reason, and it's killing fish, and wondering if that's the way it goes for corporate, that it's better for the bottom line to throw cheap non-fixes at it and let the fish die, than to spend an extra buck or two to treat them right and save the fishes lives.

I couldn't do what you do and work in a place with that level of incompetence. I mean I work with some incompetent people still, but they stay the heck out of my way and let me do what's needed.

No, it's not your job to fix the companies problems ethically or humanely,. your job is "associate" or whatever you were hired for, if they want you playing the in house aquaculturist/ichthyologist/aquatic specialist and fish keeper for them, then they can pay you for your knowledge and skill level and give you full time and control ov the fish department and it's staff..
your manager and his boss will never do that I'll bet.....

It's your job to report the bad situations for personal safety and health as well as livestock safety and health (they are living beings that deserve to be treated humanely and with compassion).... and HOPEFULLY someone above them drops in to see what's going on before they kill every fish in the store out of ignorance and incompetence.
If that gets you fired for reporting it, good. that's not the place to work at or be involved with if this is the way they deal with it and people that raise concerns over the treatment of the livestock.

Even if you buy, fix, and return those fish, more are sure to follow, as far as your description, sounds the entire fish department is cross contaminated and more tanks will show illness shortly and all the fish will need treatment..... or euthanizing all stock, a sanitizing and restart....... probably more cost effective for the bottom line....

Irks me they don't even care that they are selling them to people still.......

Like the saying, "see something, say something" it's your responsibility, and you'll feel good that you at least tried. Personally you can't save them all one by one at home it's not going to solve the problem at the store.

 

I don't know where you work, what type of pet store and if it's a chain, (and I don't want to know) but might be useful if you pull the "whistleblower" routine to corporate if you are at a chain store.

Tell them the situation, how it's getting worse because people don't know what they are doing, and they won't take your recommendations on how to treat the fish for the illnesses going on and so it's spreading, and that the fish could have been saved but the "hierarchy structure of chain of command overrides actual experience and knowledge for some reason, and it's killing fish, and wondering if that's the way it goes for corporate, that it's better for the bottom line to throw cheap non-fixes at it and let the fish die, than to spend an extra buck or two to treat them right and save the fishes lives.

I couldn't do what you do and work in a place with that level of incompetence. I mean I work with some incompetent people still, but they stay the heck out of my way and let me do what's needed.

No, it's not your job to fix the companies problems ethically or humanely,. your job is "associate" or whatever you were hired for, if they want you playing the in house aquaculturist/ichthyologist/aquatic specialist and fish keeper for them, then they can pay you for your knowledge and skill level and give you full time and control ov the fish department and it's staff..
your manager and his boss will never do that I'll bet.....

It's your job to report the bad situations for personal safety and health as well as livestock safety and health (they are living beings that deserve to be treated humanely and with compassion).... and HOPEFULLY someone above them drops in to see what's going on before they kill every fish in the store out of ignorance and incompetence.
If that gets you fired for reporting it, good. that's not the place to work at or be involved with if this is the way they deal with it and people that raise concerns over the treatment of the livestock.

Even if you buy, fix, and return those fish, more are sure to follow, as far as your description, sounds the entire fish department is cross contaminated and more tanks will show illness shortly and all the fish will need treatment..... or euthanizing all stock, a sanitizing and restart....... probably more cost effective for the bottom line....

Irks me they don't even care that they are selling them to people still.......

Like the saying, "see something, say something" it's your responsibility, and you'll feel good that you at least tried. Personally you can't save them all one by one at home it's not going to solve the problem at the store.

I know. I’ve had headaches over this on-and-off for the last few days. As soon as I find a better job I’m putting in my two weeks’ notice.
Most of the people I work with are nice, but I cannot deal with this manager.
Honestly I’m not even sure going to corporate would help. IME they’re basically a bunch of desk jockeys who’ve never actually worked in a store, which has led to a few other mind-bogglingly insane decisions culminating in this. (I promise you don’t want to know what the others are.)
In theory, this manager very recently put me charge of keeping the live-animal department up to company standards. In practice, well. He’ll let me make suggestions about other animals, but fish? The thing I specifically told him were my specialty? He went to his boss instead, even after I told him exactly what needed to be done. As of yesterday the infected unit hasn’t even been marked as not for sale. I always tell customers when fish from a tank are sick if they’re interested in buying any, but most of the store doesn’t know, since there’s no official sign. He’s not letting me do my job.
I can try calling the next couple people up the chain of command, but those are the only phone numbers we have listed for concerns not being solved at the store level.
Ten dollars. It would’ve cost ten dollars for anchor worm treatment.
I don’t work with the manager causing the obstruction until Monday, so for now I can’t even ask that we try what I told him to do to start with.
I just wish there was something I could do for the fish now.

 

It's not worth the headaches. all I can really say, and that burden isn't your problem to deal with. I'd just let it be known to people that care about PR and stock prices and "peace out!".

be really bad for business if some yahoo walked in off the street and blogged with video to their followers and subscribers about a bunch of sick and dying fish that they aren't doing anything to help.

Trust me if you bosses got caught by corporate the first theing they said is, "well we assigned this to (blah) they are the stores "live animal lead!"

They will toss you right under the bus to cover for themselves. bet on that, I'd burn everyone on my way out, but I'm petty like that it would make me happy!

 

It's not worth the headaches. all I can really say, and that burden isn't your problem to deal with. I'd just let it be known to people that care about PR and stock prices and "peace out!".

be really bad for business if some yahoo walked in off the street and blogged with video to their followers and subscribers about a bunch of sick and dying fish that they aren't doing anything to help.

Trust me if you bosses got caught by corporate the first theing they said is, "well we assigned this to (blah) they are the stores "live animal lead!"

They will toss you right under the bus to cover for themselves. bet on that, I'd burn everyone on my way out, but I'm petty like that it would make me happy!

Update: minor victory for the anchor worm situation. Three more fish now have worms. One of the fish that had a worm before is no longer there. However, the assistant manager talked the problem manager into letting us set up a QT, and we put a not-for-sale sign on the unit…and he (the assistant manager) told me to grab some actual anchor worm meds. (He’ll be paying me back.) He explicitly said to not tell the problem manager.
I went ahead and checked the standard operating procedures for treating fish diseases, and they said to use General Cure for anchor worms. I just…wow. I found out why this treatment was ineffective and what treatments would work with a few Internet searches on my lunch break. There’s no excuse for this kind of ignorance.
Maybe I should get back in touch with the last girl who left due to frustrations with this particular problem manager. It’d at least get me some enjoyment out of this mess.

edit: do you know off-hand if it’s safe to treat for ich and anchor worm at the same time?