Is this ich

[Lolo8234]

Help I woke up and saw that my angelfish and black skirt tetra have white spots on them and I don’t know what to do 

[Brandy]

I can't tell in the pic due to resolution. Ich is uniform and looks like grains of salt stuck to the fish. Other white "spots" that look fuzzy and are irregular sizes are not ich, but fungus or bacteria. Does that help? 

[Lolo8234]

Yes it does thank you so much 

[RovingGinger]

My tetras have something similar going on and I am not sure if it’s ich or fungal. Treating with the quarantine trio but so far not much improvement. 

[RovingGinger]

Update on the above - still not really better, but it remains pretty much isolated to the fins from what I can see. Treating with ich-x and paracleanse now. I am uncertain if the filter cartridge I was using had charcoal in it so I've swapped it for an ammonia pad in the hospital tank and we'll see.

[MickS77]

55 minutes ago, RovingGinger said:

Update on the above - still not really better, but it remains pretty much isolated to the fins from what I can see. Treating with ich-x and paracleanse now. I am uncertain if the filter cartridge I was using had charcoal in it so I've swapped it for an ammonia pad in the hospital tank and we'll see.

I would run some erythromycin too, that looks more bacterial/fungal to me. 

[RovingGinger]

31 minutes ago, MickS77 said:

I would run some erythromycin too, that looks more bacterial/fungal to me. 

Just added, found one serpae dead and one very close 😕 I had them dosed with the trio earlier (week ago+) but to no effect and I’m wondering if it was charcoal in the filter pouch negating it. 

[Brandy]

Charcoal would strip the meds out I think. That is its purpose.

I think the trio as a supportive quarantine measure is great, but for something like this maybe go with the full course, as described on the box? 

I would assume "fin rot", which could be fungal or bacterial or both, so I would use maracyn and ichX together? They can both be dosed daily.

[RovingGinger]

44 minutes ago, Brandy said:

Charcoal would strip the meds out I think. That is its purpose.

I think the trio as a supportive quarantine measure is great, but for something like this maybe go with the full course, as described on the box? 

I would assume "fin rot", which could be fungal or bacterial or both, so I would use maracyn and ichX together? They can both be dosed daily.

I had the trio originally when I couldn’t quite tell what was off with the bunch. But didn’t realize there was charcoal in the filter - I normally use sponge, not cartridge driven HOBs (filter and cartridges came with a used tank that I used for QT). 

I haven’t seen much decay to the fins over time. Just kind of consistent white spots that slightly vary in size. Is that consistent with fin rot? My various references focus on the raggedyness. 

[Brandy]

2 minutes ago, RovingGinger said:

I haven’t seen much decay to the fins over time. Just kind of consistent white spots that slightly vary in size. Is that consistent with fin rot? My various references focus on the raggedyness. 

I don't actually know exactly what it is, it seems like the pic showed ragged edges, sorry. I was guessing it is either fungal or bacterial or both--one can follow the other opportunistically, and they have similar looking symptoms. It doesn't look like a parasite that I am familiar with--not that I have an exhaustive knowledge by any stretch.

If it is not responding to a single dose soaking for a week, I would go with the full treatment dose for both IchX and erythromycin, especially since the dosing schedule for those two meds is the same. I think that is the beauty of the quarantine trio--they are compatible, so you don't have to know exactly what it is, you just have to be close. 

Hopefully the antibiotic will catch it with the IchX adding some antifungal support, and you will see a turn around fast. Keep us posted!

[RovingGinger]

No deaths overnight, continuing to dose with the full trio treatment. I am thinking the fungus call is correct as one of the red eye tetras had some white develop on one eye. 
 

update - pretty sure @Brandy was correct on the fin rot, possibly accompanied by cotton wool disease. No more dead fish yet but they look very bad so I’ve upped the erythromycin because at this point they will likely not make it. 
 

I didn’t note much continuous fin shredding before (thought it was nipping from a naughty blood parrot) and the white patches were very small. I think mistaking it for ich and missing the charcoal in the insert + hard water meant the trio treatment wasn’t enough earlier. My water is also very hard, think that might be putting more stress on the tetras. 

Edited August 13, 2020 by RovingGinger
Updating

[RovingGinger]

Welp, all tetras dead. Waiting to see if the lone molly makes it but thus far I haven’t seen improvement with either med, it may just have been too little too late with the charcoal mishap. 
 

Would you use bleach for sanitizing the tank? Or would Dawn and hot water work? 

[Daniel]

What if you didn't have to sanitize to make the ich go away? I had always heard that if the protozoan ich went a week without a host, it would die out. That sounded to good to be true. Maybe it was like Daphnia and made a cyst to survive until a later time when it could re-emerge and then find a new host.

But then I found this paper from a reputable source (Southern Regional Aquaculture Center). The paper states that a pond can be disinfected by going a week without fish.

Given the source this might actually be true.

If it is true, this seems like a lower effort way to have an ich free tank without nuking away all the good bacteria that have built up to this point.

https://aquaculture.ca.uky.edu/sites/aquaculture.ca.uky.edu/files/srac_476_ich_white_spot_disease.pdf

[RovingGinger]

At this point I think @Brandy was right and it was fungal or bacterial - the fish basically were eaten alive by white growth inside and out I think 😖 unless that’s what ich looks like too, this was a new experience for me. Reminded me of getting scale or mites on my houseplants - nasty stuff. 

I am thinking I will try this method: 

The weird thing is, this happened to fish from completely separate tanks - an inside community tank (The 6 now dead tetras) and an outdoor pond (the 2 mollies, one of whom had a side fin stuck out and dropsy before he died but seemed to have the same white spots/patching, one of whom is still alive and looks worse but is energetic). I don’t recall either hitting anything very bad when I tested parameters. However, all the fish who got ill were recently stressed and were naturally kind of high strung fish nerves wise. So I am wondering if part of this is like ich in that it’s always present and just looking for a weak entry point? Is that too naive? 
 

Overall not fun but part of the learning I guess. 
 

[Daniel]

To me ich always looked like grains of salt:

[Brandy]

37 minutes ago, Daniel said:

What if you didn't have to sanitize to make the ich go away? I had always heard that if the protozoan ich went a week without a host, it would die out. That sounded to good to be true. Maybe it was like Daphnia and made a cyst to survive until a later time when it could re-emerge and then find a new host.

But then I found this paper from a reputable source (Southern Regional Aquaculture Center). The paper states that a pond can be disinfected by going a week without fish.

Given the source this might actually be true.

If it is true, this seems like a lower effort way to have an ich free tank without nuking away all the good bacteria that have built up to this point.

https://aquaculture.ca.uky.edu/sites/aquaculture.ca.uky.edu/files/srac_476_ich_white_spot_disease.pdf

I have used this method successfully for ich. Shrimp and snails can't host ich, so I left the tank invert-only for 2 weeks (because I'm paranoid). No recurrences. For something like columnaris that probably wouldn't work as well, so this counts on a positive ID, but even in that case I feel like a fish rest is probably a reasonable plan if you have thriving inverts.

[RovingGinger]

5 hours ago, Daniel said:

To me ich always looked like grains of salt:

Does ich always start wide-spread? This started with a few dots but it’s definitely more of a growth. Attached is the last fish with symptoms and I am not sure whether to keep trying or put an end to it. 
 

Apologies about the sideways, this forum doesn’t rotate mobile uploads for me. 

[Daniel]

34 minutes ago, RovingGinger said:

Does ich always start wide-spread?

It can start with just 1 dot and then become many dots over time.

[RovingGinger]

So digging in further I think it is saprolegnia accompanied by fin rot? 
In which case I am not sure a bleach nuclear response is appropriate or helpful. I may try my luck with a thorough water change and rinse and some of the uglier male guppies after a rest period unless this is a definite recipe for regret? 
 

Timeline was too slow for columnaris and the growth was lumpy/fluffy. I have seen fungus quickly envelop anything that falls into the pond. Guessing all had some kind of stressor. The tetras being in groups of two (not my choice - they came with a tank) were constantly picking at each other. 

Edited August 16, 2020 by RovingGinger