Tiny black spots on Bolivian Ram

[Jesse L]

I’ve been battling flukes for a few months now. I’ve done several treatments of prazi pro, para cleanse and I think I finally saw improvement using Flukasol which is flubendazole. I’m on the second week of the Flukasol treatment and I’ve noticed one of my Bolivian rams started getting some black specks all over his body. Would this be a different disease or is this normal? 

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/14/2023 at 6:20 PM, Jesse L said:

I’ve been battling flukes for a few months now. I’ve done several treatments of prazi pro, para cleanse and I think I finally saw improvement using Flukasol which is flubendazole. I’m on the second week of the Flukasol treatment and I’ve noticed one of my Bolivian rams started getting some black specks all over his body. Would this be a different disease or is this normal? 

Hey Jesse, welcome to the forums!

When you're battling a disease for months... let's take a step back and review the entirety of what happened and lets go ahead and try to really understand what worked, what didn't, and why.

Having the flukes on the fish is usually easy to spot, so maybe it's something that isn't flukes? 

PraziPro is one medication, but using paracleanse as well should cover flukes.  You do need to have a repeated treatment over several doses and so perhaps that is where the issues lie?

I wanted to ask if you've ever used salt before while treating for some of these external parasites. 

This is a video which discusses an external protozoan parasite that is found on some betta fish.  It is indicative of a black region on the top of the head where the skin deteriorates.  It's a very informative video, but I wanted to share it for the sake of potentially you're dealing with something like this in terms of external parasites.

I would lean towards 2 weeks without meds, let the fish recover, and then start by using ich-x+salt as your main treatment for 1 week.  This is a relatively mild treatment that works for a variety of external parasites.  Salt dose would be 1 tbsp per 2 gallons.  If you have plants, it might be best to remove the plants from the tank to be able to treat the entirety of the tank.
 

Quote

Commonly used to treat:

• Ich (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis)
• Velvet (Gold Dust Disease)
• Saproleniasis (Cotton Wool Disease)
• Trichondiniasis 
• Fungal Issues
• Protozoan Caused Diseases 

 

On 11/14/2023 at 6:20 PM, Jesse L said:

It might be a good idea to get some metroplex on hand as well as the ich-x.  I don't know if this qualifies as indicative of something like hole in the head disease forming.  I don't know if that is a common thing in rams, but it can be common in cichlids. ( @Odd Duck @Colu might be able to clarify that point for us! )

The dots on the head remind me a bit of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampullae_of_Lorenzini

[Jesse L]

@nabokovfan87 thanks for replying! I first suspected flukes because some of my corys started flashing then some of my tetras started doing it so that’s when I noticed it was spreading and started meditating. I started with para cleanse, following dosing instructions two treatments one week apart.  I didn’t see much improvement and followed with 3 rounds of prazi pro back to back. It seemed to help a little but fish were still flashing. I then let them rest for a month and was still seeing flashing so I tried a one week soak of ich x with little improvement. Finally used fukasol and have seen a dramatic improvement. All the fish in the tank seem fine and eating well but I did noticed those spots on the ram that I had never seen. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/14/2023 at 8:12 PM, Jesse L said:

some of my corys started flashing then some of my tetras started doing it so that’s when I noticed it was spreading and started meditating.

Can you give us all the water parameters including temp?

 

[Jesse L]

@nabokovfan87 

ph 7.6-8

kh 80ppm

gh is pretty high 300ppm

Nitrite 0

nitrate 0

temp 76

tanks been running for about a year

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/14/2023 at 8:26 PM, Jesse L said:

temp 76

You might try gently raising the temp to 78 in addition to other things mentioned above. I had my ram freeze on me and I just overly am concerned with that now. Mine was at 73-74 and I didn't realize until way after what I did wrong.

Temperature being slightly off leads to stress, leads to issues like diseases and parasites showing up, so it's just something I want to mention.

On 11/14/2023 at 8:26 PM, Jesse L said:

ph 7.6-8

kh 80ppm

gh is pretty high 300ppm

It's a bit interesting that the PH is this high. It makes me wonder about aeration, but that aside I don't think anything is of concern here.

I would keep an eye on PH and make sure it doesn't go any higher. If possible, verify KH via a liquid test kit.

[Chick-In-Of-TheSea]

Black discoloration on fish could be ammonia burn. Ammonia can occur when medicating, as some medications disrupt the nitrogen cycle. Do you regularly test for ammonia? Of the “big 3” (ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate) ammonia is the most toxic. If you test with strips, the ammonia test would be on its own separate strip; it is not part of the multi-test strips.

[Colu]

The only disease I can think that cause black spots is black spot disease the recommended treatment is praziquantel active ingredient in prazipro it's rarely fatal usually self limiting and doesn't require treatment it's more commonly found in pound because it need birds as part of its life cycle am not convinced that's what it is what's your ammonia level @Jesse L

Edited November 15, 2023 by Colu

[Jesse L]

@Chick-In-Of-TheSea yeah, checked ammonia too and it’s at 0ppm

[Odd Duck]

Flukes should have responded to the first treatments with PraziPro, so I don’t think flukes are the issue.  Flukes should be visible on the fish’s skin if you can see close enough to notice these much, much smaller black dots.

Flubendazole has some antimicrobial effect as well as the anti-parasitic function.  It is even being studied for anti-cancer effects because of how it acts inside the cell.  I would be far more inclined to think this might be a bacterial skin infection vs flukes, largely because I think you would have seen flukes since you’re looking so close.

I think salt in the water would be a good thing, but I’d probably only do 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons to start, then over a couple days, potentially increase to 1 tablespoon per 3 gallons.  That dose is likely to affect plants, so pull anything you want to save.  Add at least one airstone and let the fish rest from the meds.  They’re pretty safe but you don’t need to treat flukes that aren’t there.

[Jesse L]

@Odd Duck  I suspected flukes just because of the constant flashing. They were scratching themselves near the gills on the sand and on plants. They seem better now and hoping  flubendazole wipes out whatever was making itch. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 11/15/2023 at 12:09 PM, Jesse L said:

@Odd Duck  I suspected flukes just because of the constant flashing. They were scratching themselves near the gills on the sand and on plants. They seem better now and hoping  flubendazole wipes out whatever was making itch. 

PH can cause a similar type of reaction as well as just anything externally.

On 11/15/2023 at 11:19 AM, Odd Duck said:

would be far more inclined to think this might be a bacterial skin infection vs flukes, largely because I think you would have seen flukes since you’re looking so close.

Interesting. What would be the usual suspect, gram negative or gram positive or both?

[Jesse L]

@nabokovfan87 I’ve been adding Indian almond leaves and more Malaysian driftwood to get the ph a little lower 

[Odd Duck]

On 11/15/2023 at 2:19 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

PH can cause a similar type of reaction as well as just anything externally

Yes, exactly, with other causes more likely than flukes.

On 11/15/2023 at 2:19 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

Interesting. What would be the usual suspect, gram negative or gram positive or both?

Gram negatives far more likely in our fishy friends and their aquatic environment.  There are so very many Gram negative bacteria that are opportunistic pathogens and water is their normal environment.