good/bad

It's a good news, bad news day for the aquarium. I finally got all five kuhli loaches into the fish trap to feed. The black ones still enter first, two striped kuhlis were in there when I checked five minutes later, and the last one shortly after. So they're learning! Each time find the way in quicker.

Bad news is one of my cherry barb females seems ill? White flaky patch on the top of her head. Her gills look redder than normal, too. A few days ago I saw a pale strip on one side of her head- it looked squarish so I thought she had run up against the filter. It seemed to be fading, healing, so I did nothing. Then Pinkie got another tear in his scales- from what I don't know

but I tied a bit of pantyhose over filter intake. Turns out that was a bad idea. I guess it hindered the flow too much- next morning I noticed an odd sound and saw the filter had quit running. No idea how long it was out. First thing I tried was removing the pantyhose, then it worked fine again. But another female barb has pale mark on its head, and the first poorly one looks worse- the patch has spread across to other side of head. It doesn't look fuzzy like fungus though, but flaky- almost like skin is peeling off?

I don't know what this is. I put them both in QT, at the very least I can keep their water super clean with extra water changes there. Am asking on the fish forums. It could be bacterial, from injury? or fungus that attacked the injury when my filter was out, or columnaris (god I hope not).