White balls on Ram (not ich)

[hunterhusker]

The pics aren't the best, I chose the best one for the thumbnail. But I have been struggling to get my rams out of quarantine for a month now. First it was real ich. Beat that with "nox ich", very good product highly recommend. But afterwards these white clumps took out my tetras in a week and have taken to my rams. Thinking Epistylis I lowered temps from 84F to 79F since Epistylis is faster in the warmth and added Sulfaplex to my nox ich. Since nox ich is Malachite Green and salt and I heard online it was safe to mix with Sulfaplex. 2 weeks later and nothing. The rams don't seem to care they eat (medicated food made from sulfaplex and bug bites) and they swim and play. But these little clumps just keep growing. They look like clusters of eggs! I have never seen this one before so I'm searching everywhere for advice. I'm thinking if the Sulfaplex doesn't start working I've seen someone treat Epistylis with copper and I might give that a go? Thoughts?

 

Edit: also forgot to say I included the parameters from earlier. Did a water change because of the nitrites. But that's pretty normal for this tank. And it's a 10 gallon with nothing but the 2 GBRs and a sponge filter.

Edited Tuesday at 02:51 AM by hunterhusker

[Colu]

Looks like epistylis that feeds off of gram negative bacteria on the slime coat of your fish and spreads more quickly at higher temperatures the best treatment I have found is malachite green active ingredient in your ich medication maracyn2 in food feeding a small amount twice a day for 7 days @hunterhusker

[hunterhusker]

On 9/23/2024 at 10:45 PM, Colu said:

Looks like epistylis that feeds off of gram negative bacteria on the slime coat of your fish and spreads more quickly at higher temperatures the best treatment I have found is malachite green active ingredient in your ich medication maracyn2 in food feeding a small amount twice a day for 7 days @hunterhusker

They've been on daily malachite green for two weeks now, only thing missing is the maracyn 2 in the food. I've been feeding them Sulfaplex in the food for the two weeks too and dosing it in the water column. I don't have easy access to maracyn 2 or seachem focus. I could try and order them from online but so far no luck finding the maracyn 2. 

I can get my hands on Kanaplex or metroplex and I think I know where to get erythromycin. Would any of those work as substitute? Gram negative is harder to find meds for.

Also out of curiosity for next time how could you tell it was Epistylis? Lots of the pictures I see of it do have some clumps but also loads of them just look like ich covering the whole body, while this one is primarily on the fins even after failing to treat it for 2 weeks now.

[Colu]

On 9/24/2024 at 12:21 PM, hunterhusker said:

They've been on daily malachite green for two weeks now, only thing missing is the maracyn 2 in the food. I've been feeding them Sulfaplex in the food for the two weeks too and dosing it in the water column. I don't have easy access to maracyn 2 or seachem focus. I could try and order them from online but so far no luck finding the maracyn 2. 

I can get my hands on Kanaplex or metroplex and I think I know where to get erythromycin. Would any of those work as substitute? Gram negative is harder to find meds for.

Also out of curiosity for next time how could you tell it was Epistylis? Lots of the pictures I see of it do have some clumps but also loads of them just look like ich covering the whole body, while this one is primarily on the fins even after failing to treat it for 2 weeks now.

I would use kanaplex if you can't get maracyn2 I would dose the tank with kanaplex as it isn't very effective in food as very little of the medication is adsorbed by the intestinal tract so not much makes it into the blood stream I would stop treating with malachite green while treating with kanaplex and add aquarium salt 1 table spoon for 2 gallons for 7 days