Background information
Bugsy has been in our family for the past 3 years. We inherited him from a neighbor and he was the lone occupant of a 20g tank until 4 weeks ago.
What happened 4 weeks ago you may ask? A close family friend, a grandfatherly type, offered to take my 11 year old son to Petco to buy more fish for his tank.
I didn't want to be the mean guy, so I bit my tongue.
The next day, 5 new fish are in the tank representing 4 different breeds.
What happened next? New fish #1 had to be removed due to aggression. New fish #2 died on day 3. New fish #3 died on day 5. The remaining 4 fish (Bugsy plus the remaining 3 newcomers), seemed to be doing ok for the next couple of days, when I noticed Bugsy developing white specks (this would have been 3 weeks ago on the timeline). The next few days I researched on how to best treat the ich. This was the first time Bugsy had ever had ich.
My first step in Bugsy's treatment was to remove all of the new fish from his tank. Second, I did several 50% water changes in his tank to improve the water quality. Next, I considered adding chemical ich treatments to his tank and raising the tank temp. However, then I found a thread on this forum from jlk advising another black moor goldfish owner to treat ich using a QT with 0.3% salt solution and 50% daily water changes. So that is the course of treatment that I chose.
It took about 10 days in the QT for all of the white spots to fall off, but now that the ich is gone Bugsy appears to have a secondary infection of some sort. His symptoms are:
1) the white fluffy patch on his left side,
2) white spots on his tail (but not the salt grain-like ich spots he did have).
Final note, the QT was empty of any gravel until 2 days ago, when I added a thin layer of gravel and a bottle of Tetra SafeStart. I did this as this QT will be Bugsy's home for a while until I have the time to scrub down his display tank. As you can see from my numbers above, the nitrites and nitrates are not zero, indicating the presence of some cycling.
Thanks again for taking the time to read and reply!
Kent