Speaking of puzzling, so is your account of the fluff. If it lifted off the fish leaving raw, but increasingly healthy flesh, that was fungus (which feeds on dead flesh - I can see the movie now, Fungus Attack in the Aquarium). I've heard of fungus lifting like that before. It is neat that your fish is recovering. Also it is good to see that the two meds were designed to work together and did indeed work together. Great job of checking and informed shopping on your behalf.

That overhead shot does look a bit like columnaris, but maybe we are wrong. Certainly not going to loose our amateur status. I don't believe the fish was hurt by the medication though, was it?

Those females just look "full" of fry (though I was wrong once before.) I'll bet they were among those that dropped, as per your diary, today. They may look a little dark, but moods and colors change. It doesn't look like the black spot I'm familiar (a tad) with on mbuna. While darkening may be stress related, neither do they look like the sad, very dark fish shimmying in a vender's tank.

Hope you are as successful on the ich front. Keep doing mostly what you are doing in terms of moderately feeding and changing water.

I don't know if this would be helpful in your fight to not carry an illness from one tank to another but remember the advice is free and maybe worth every cent. I soak non-dissolvable equipment such as tanks, filters boxes (not sponges!) and siphon tubes in a 32-gallon, covered garbage can (dedicated to the purpose) which has three gallons of bleach added to the carefully hosed in water. After a half-hour to several day soak those items are removed, drained and placed in another covered garbage can which has a sodium thiasulfate solution in it. That is the same stuff which is in aquarium dechlorinators, but a lot cheaper if purchased as crystals. (Rarely found this way any more; it also was/is sold to photographers as Hypo Solution.)

One could also just use the exit bucket for a 10 to 1 (or maybe 20 to 1) water to bleach soak. The bucket could be dumped down a toilet or laundry sink (cleaning out the drains) and a vinegar solution added for chlorine removal. You may need to air that stuff or really hose it down until the vinegar smell goes away.

As for my hands, sometimes I'll scrub down with baking soda and return to the tank. (No soap in the tank that way.) Or maybe it's time to quit the fish care and wash some dishes or the car. ;)