Help! A single ich spot with staying power

[Lovin Fish]

Hello. One Glass Catfish has the same salt-like spot with no change since 12/10/2011! Even after treatment. I don't know how to get rid of that spot. Help Please!

If you want more details, please read on.

I have a community tank with 8 glass catfish, 4 tetra schools, 1 corydoras school & 1 Kuhli loach group.
The Serpae Tetras started blantching 2 days after adding 3 Rummynose (who had been quarentined first) same day one glass Catfish had a tiny white "blotch" on her back. Then a second GC got a salt-spec on it's side. LFS told me after watching a video of my tank, the whole tank had ICH. I increased the aireation and started salt/heat treatment immediately after thorough research (FYI gradually upped salt to avoid shocking sensitive scaleless fish; found great info about salt and corydoras care during ich treatment).
2 days later the GC with the blotch got worse. I recognized it was not ICH on her, so I moved her to a 10 gallon QT (next to the main tank) and after LFS advise, started treating her for fungus with Pimafix.

The GC in the main tank has had the same single salt speck (ich) since 12/10/11. Spot hasn't change and no more popped up on the GC or any other fish. Started Super Ich Cure treatment (1/2 dose) on 12/19. Treated by package directions. No change. Continued treatment until 12/29 which was the last day I used the SIC meds. Held temp at 82-84 degrees F (temp fluctuates day to night) Continued with salt treatment. Monitoring fish daily, everyone is fine.
I lowered the temp (gradually) to 78 degrees F and discontinued salt treatment. It is now 01/07/12 and the single salt-like spot is still holding on to the side of my GC. Other then the spot, he is fine and eating well. All the other fish are fine too. The Serpae Tetras still blantch occassionaly. Wonder if this is their behavior? Showing off for one another or something?


Note: I never moved the GC with the salt speck to the hospital tank because it was being used by a GC with a white blotch. She sadly passed after weeks of treatment just yesterday. She is the first fish that has ever died on me. I cried my eyes out and felt sick to my stomache. Today I am disturbed everytime I see her tank. She was set up next to the other tank so she wouldn't feel alone and could see the other GC.
She was my favorite one out of the group. She was very social with me. I had found the meds she needed through a post by a glass catfich wholesaler. Unfortunately the medicine is not sold to the US or Canada. I was unable to find a parallel medicine in the US. What she had did not seem to be a true fungus. More like Costia, but not sure on that either. The medicine I would love to have on hand as it worked wonders for the glass cat wholesaler is Medizin P. Anyone know of it's US parallel Med? Thanks for all your help in advance.

 

[Lovin Fish]

The ICH spot is STILL on my fish! Does anyone have any ideas? Please help. This thread has had 80 views but zero answers

 

[derail]

Honestly, Ich is a difficult protozoan to get rid of, and to be honest, when the white spots are visible on the fish, you won't get rid of them. What the treatment and salt/heat remedies/baths are for are killing them after they've, for lack of a better term, bursted and fell to the bottom of the tank to reproduce. It could be a really slow life cycle for it if it's still remaining after this much time, or could not be ich at all but something else. Can you post some pics?

Sorry to hear about the loss of your fish, I know that's hard to deal with.

As far as that medicine is concerned, I'm not sure where you'd come across it, as I'm not a fan of using medicine and the traditional heat/salt baths are my favorite.

 

[Lovin Fish]

I tried to post pics, but my camera is not compatible with anything I try to upload them to; Picasa Web Albums is my favo, but can't use it either. I tried to upload them directly to here, but couldn't. Hmmmm....I will take some with my phone tomorrow, though they won't be the best that's for sure. Thanks so much for responding! I will get pics up tomorrow! My fishies are sleeping right now .

 

[derail]

Good...hope you don't lose any more.

 

[Koikid88]

From my experience with Glass catfish, Sounds like you aren't even dealing with ich (Other than your initial outbreak). Glass catfish often have little 'spots', especially on the pectoral fins for some reason. Many fish have these all over the body, but those with out transparency, it's not visible. With ich, you will notice the sprinkled salt look is much finer than these bigger spots. You may have lost the fish from the stress of treating with super ick. I luckily, haven't had to medicate my glass catfish yet, but have had to defeat ick. I used 1/3 dose of aquarium salt, gradually raised temp to 86, 3 weeks later, bam, no more ich, but the bigger spots on the fins remain. No problems since. This was 6 months ago, although now, about 2 weeks ago the biggest catfish has gone milky. All normal behaviour, hasn't worsened in colour. I'm just leaving him be as he is much larger than the others and probably the oldest.

 

[Koikid88]

I tried to post pics, but my camera is not compatible with anything I try to upload them to; Picasa Web Albums is my favo, but can't use it either. I tried to upload them directly to here, but couldn't. Hmmmm....I will take some with my phone tomorrow, though they won't be the best that's for sure. Thanks so much for responding! I will get pics up tomorrow! My fishies are sleeping right now .

Hey, do you try and upload straight to here direct from your phone? Or do you put in the pics onto your computer first, then upload the file? I tried going straight from the camera when I first signed up but it didn't work either.

 

[Mumma.of.two]

Hello. One Glass Catfish has the same salt-like spot with no change since 12/10/2011! Even after treatment.

I didn't read the thread but this caught my eye. If it's had the spot since last year IT IS NOT ICH.
http://www.aquahobby.com/articles/e_ich2.php

 

[Lovin Fish]

From my experience with Glass catfish, Sounds like you aren't even dealing with ich (Other than your initial outbreak). Glass catfish often have little 'spots', especially on the pectoral fins for some reason. Many fish have these all over the body, but those with out transparency, it's not visible. With ich, you will notice the sprinkled salt look is much finer than these bigger spots. You may have lost the fish from the stress of treating with super ick. I luckily, haven't had to medicate my glass catfish yet, but have had to defeat ick. I used 1/3 dose of aquarium salt, gradually raised temp to 86, 3 weeks later, bam, no more ich, but the bigger spots on the fins remain. No problems since. This was 6 months ago, although now, about 2 weeks ago the biggest catfish has gone milky. All normal behaviour, hasn't worsened in colour. I'm just leaving him be as he is much larger than the others and probably the oldest.

Thanks for your reply. I hope your "milky" fish gets clear and happy again! It's so sad when they get sick. The glass cat with teh salt speck has never had any changes. It never spread, got bigger or smaller. Even after all the heat/salt/and later the meds when heat and salt failed. Far as the baby that died in the hospitol tank; it was such a sad ordeal. She definetely did not have ich! It was a white patch rather than a salt speck. She was in the big tank with the ich treatment while the heat and salt was going on, but when she suddenly got worse, I moved her to the hospitol tank and treated her with PimaFix. No improvement...just a slow increase in white patches until se finally perished. So dang sad!

None of them have any spots on their fins or tail. Only the one has a single speck on his side just below the spine in mid-center of the length of his body. I am not treating any more. Just checking the spot several times a day to be sure it hasn't broke away from him. If that happens I plan to raise the temp and add salt as a precaution incase it is in fact Ich.

Thanks for your response!

 

[Lovin Fish]

I didn't read the thread but this caught my eye. If it's had the spot since last year IT IS NOT ICH.
Using Heat to Treat Ich in Freshwater Tropical Fish - Article at The Age of Aquariums - Tropical Fish

I was thinking it's not Ich, but it looks just like it! And I haven't been able to find anything else to explain it. It looks exactly like a piece of salt stuck to him. I wonder if it's possible something stunted it's life process and it's dormant??
Thank you for the link! This link is where I got my treament info. I followed everything just as instructed. I am glad you posted it because I couldn't find it again!
Thank you!!

 

[Lovin Fish]

I tried to post pics, but my camera is not compatible with anything I try to upload them to; Picasa Web Albums is my favo, but can't use it either. I tried to upload them directly to here, but couldn't. Hmmmm....I will take some with my phone tomorrow, though they won't be the best that's for sure. Thanks so much for responding! I will get pics up tomorrow! My fishies are sleeping right now .

Sorry! I never got any pics that would work! He was hiding from the camera! It was quite odd as I have taken tons of photos of him with my video camera! He must not approve of my cell phone LOL! I will try again tomorrow. Thanks for your help...and patience while I try to get pictures for you to see.

 

[Lovin Fish]

OKAY! I found a way around PMB and can finally post a picture of my Glass Catfish; the "salt speck" is under the spine 1/2 way back from the head...tell me what you think. Is it Ich? It's been there since December! (note that the spot on the head isn't actually on the fish...I think that was a bit of reflection or something like a bubble passing by when I took the shot) Oh! Also note that the fish in the back does not have any spots (or any of the other glass cats for that matter) In the pic it may look like it, but it's just a bubble floating by)

 

[CMN]

Is the ick speck raised or is it smooth looking?

 

[Lovin Fish]

Is the ick speck raised or is it smooth looking?

It's raised. Looks just like I attached a piece of sea salt to him.

 

[CMN]

Does the fish act differently bc if not some fish just have a growth. If he doesn't seem to be bothered by it then he should be fine. The behavior of a fish that has ick is rubbing up against things, disoriented hitting the side of the glass or bumbling into things. Just monitor it. Ik you raised your temps but ik many people that raise there temp to 86-88 gradually of coarse to cure ick. How long did u use the heat bath for?

 

[Lovin Fish]

Does the fish act differently bc if not some fish just have a growth. If he doesn't seem to be bothered by it then he should be fine. The behavior of a fish that has ick is rubbing up against things, disoriented hitting the side of the glass or bumbling into things. Just monitor it. Ik you raised your temps but ik many people that raise there temp to 86-88 gradually of coarse to cure ick. How long did u use the heat bath for?

I raised the heat faster than intended to be honest. I tried to do 2 degrees a day but my heater isn't that perfect. I raised the dial from 78 to 80 and the temp shot up to 90 degrees overnight then it sored down to 76 the next evening because I lowered the dial one degree to get the temp down from 90 degrees. That happened a few times (maybe 4 nights) but thankfully the fish were all okay with it. After playing with it I finally got it nearly stable. I actually turned the dial to OFF and the temp kept at 84-86 degrees F for 3 days, then started dropping again. So again I raised it and finally didn't have to touch it anymore because it stabled out at 86-88 degrees. The heat was at/above 84 for a total of 26 days.
Now it is about 78-80 (fluctuates). He sometimes goes off by himslef for a couple days at a time, then re-joins the group. Occassionaly I will see him suddenly dart away from the group but then re-joins the group immediately afterward. But that is the only strange behavior. No flashing or swimming aimlessly.

 

[Batt4Christ]

IN my experience, complete eradication of ich requires temps pushing 90 degrees F. From the technical data I have read, 86.5 is where they stop reproducing, but it takes 89-89.5 to actually kill them.

I also have had troubles with scaleless fish and salt as well as cores and salt. But this is just my experience...YMMV.

 

[Mumma.of.two]

IMO its a mark or growth on the fish. I'm finding it hard to believe an ich parasite after 1-2 months. If it was another type of parasite I'd think it would have changed shape or size or caused the fish to become ill.

 

[Lovin Fish]

IN my experience, complete eradication of ich requires temps pushing 90 degrees F. From the technical data I have read, 86.5 is where they stop reproducing, but it takes 89-89.5 to actually kill them.

I also have had troubles with scaleless fish and salt as well as cores and salt. But this is just my experience...YMMV.

Oh my bad! I thought I had put in my post that the temp was held at 89.9 for a few days. I then lowered it to 86 for several more days, then 82 for quite awhile. just recently I lowered to 78-80 for them.

 

[Lovin Fish]

IMO its a mark or growth on the fish. I'm finding it hard to believe an ich parasite after 1-2 months. If it was another type of parasite I'd think it would have changed shape or size or caused the fish to become ill.

It must be. I have done so much research about Ich and similar looking diseases and nothing lasts this long without changing.