Two fish who seem to have itchy skin

[JeffNebraska]

I have two new fish who don't seem to be thriving and are rubbing their skin against the leaves of my plants, almost as if their skin is itching. Anyone seen this? One of the fish also has a yellowish tinge to his skin.

I would be grateful for any input!

 

[JeffNebraska]

After further research, here and elsewhere on the web, it's clear that my fish have some kind of skin parasite. Although I trust my LFS, I'm very nervous about treating them and would really appreciate your help.

How do I figure out what kind of parasite it is. Are there different medicines for different parasites? Do I have to treat the whole tank or only the infected fish?

Please come to my rescue!

 

[Bearfan]

What kind of fish? What size tank? What else is in the tank?

 

[JeffNebraska]

Based on web recommendations, I turned the heat up in the tank last night and they actually seem a little better, though i'd be shocked if that could make a difference in so little time.

The two sickish fish are 1 German Ram and 1 Honey Dwarf Gourami. Also in the tank are 5 Rainbows, 12 cardinal tetras, 2 other dwarf gouramis, 3 Ottos, 3 Cory Cat and 1 Pl*co. 30 Gal. tank, lots of plants, ammonia and nitrite at 0, nitrate around 5 and phosphate around .25, ph 7.0. Sparklingly clean water, as I just ran my diatom filter last Friday.

Neither fish seems to be on death's door and I would also like advice about how long I can wait to treat, hoping they will heal themselves, or whether I should treat immediately. Also, I suppose running the diatom filter may have actually helped to remove some of the parasites, right. That's not at all why I ran it, but that would be serendipitous if it lessened my parasite troubles.

Thanks again!

 

[i3k]

might be ich...do you see tiny white spots on the skin? to what temp. did you set your heater to? if it is ich it is recommended to turn up the temp. to 85-86 degrees. Sometimes ich is not visible on the skin as it can also attack the gills of the fish.

 

[JeffNebraska]

I think the temperature was the culprit. I had it down to between 76 and 78 or so. Yesterday I let it get up to 84, but my Cory Cats didn't seem to like it much, so now I have it back at 82. Both the affected fish seem to be improving, so I'm really hoping to escape this situation without treating the tank. We'll see.

 

[cdawson]

I'm having this problem right now with my GSP and orange striped lyretail molly. They are doing it right now. Anybody know what the cause is, it's not ick I can't see any marks at all on them. What med should I try to use?

 

[i3k]

How often do you clean your gravel? If there is a lot of waste in the gravel, different organisms will irritate the skin of the fish and cause it to itch...if you don't see any white spots on the fish and they still keep scratching against plants/gravel after two weeks with the temperature around 84...then this might be a condition that is called itch instead of ich. Clean your gravel real well to get rid of all the waste.