Ich?

[Nelo]

Temperature - 78
Nitrates- 20
pH-7.5

Got some Cherry Barbs almost 1 month ago... Noticed small white dots on this Cherry barb 1-2 weeks ago, waited to see if the dots grew at all. It looks like they haven't grown on this fish, much but smaller dots appeared on other cherry barbs (Possible I just didn't notice the first time I checked). Is this Ich or something else? If so, can I let them fight it off? It seems very mild.

[Theplatymaster]

@Colu

also might not be ick, as ick is usually in larger amounts...

[Colu]

Possible epistylis he's how you tell the difference between ich and epistylis if it's epistylis I would do a course of maracyn2 in food feeding a small amount twice a day for 7 days and dose the tank with aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 2 gallons if if you not sure whether it ich or epistylis you can do a course of maracyn2 in food and ick X to treat the tank to cover all bases @Nelo

[ccc24]

Generally, as fish in an aquarium can not escape the Ich parasite lifecycle, they can’t be left to just fight it off. If it were nature and they could swim away - that would break the life cycle.

you can wait overnight to see if it spreads and if it has you need to treat it. Unfortunately, Ich will cause havoc vs just being a nuisance. 

[jwcarlson]

I had an issue when I first got fish again about a year ago.  Thought it was ich, ended up being epistylis.  The harder I treated the ich, the worse it got.  Then eventually it showed up on the eyes and made it clear.  I did kanaplex in food.  It cleared up pretty well.  Ich is certainly the lesser of two evils here, like Colu's chart says.  

I don't know if this will help, but here's epistylis on my rummynose.

My thread about it here as well, Colu helped me a bunch and you can read my observations and see if it matches what you're seeing.