New fish owner, please help me

[rsousa]

Hi everyone, I am new to the hobby, something appears to be wrong with my dear moors. I will try to be as descriptive as possible. Yesterday I brought home 2 black moors. I had the tank cycling for 48 hours, I used seachem prime when I filled the tank with water. And have been using seachem stability following the instructions. I bought a API water test kit. Current water temp is 68F, ph: 7.6, ammonia :0, nitrite and nitrate is 0. Tank is 55 gallons. I purchased the 2 moors from Petsmart. Yesterday they seemed normal. Nothing wrong with them from what I could observed. Today in the morning when I woke up, I noted this white fuzz coming out of their fins. And it is covering their bodies. I am very nervous, it is only my second day of ownership and they are already sick. I am feeding them seachem goldfish flakes nutriguard since yesterday. Today they barely ate, and don't really swim around. Just stay in one place mostly, hiding behind ornaments. Please give me some advice, from what I could tell it appears to be something fungal? I am not sure. Please help :'(

 

[Aiken Drum]

It looks like slimecoat to me, which is produced as a reaction to something in the water to better protect the fish.

How are they today?

 

[rsousa]

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply to my post! This has been a very stressful day. I am deeply concerned if something happens to them. I have been reading as much as I can to educate myself. I did a 70% water change today, and they seem a bit better regardint the white fuzzy material covering the body. I did notice that one of the moors the tail is losing its color at the end and it appears like frayed edges. The other moor is not as bad. They are not eating, today I tried feeding them twice, and they would not react to the fish flakes. Someone suggested it my be fin rot, but I am really unsure. Before trying any medications, especially anti biotics as it can cause negative effects or put the infection in overdrive, I was reading that salt can be helpful, if this is indeed fin rot. I wil add now pictures I just took. Thank you!!

 

[Aiken Drum]

While its not whats causing your problem, you arent cycled. You cant cycle a tank in a couple of days. So you need to test your water every day for ammonia and nitrite. Add those together, if ammonia + nitrite combined is more than 0.5ppm change enough water to bring it below that 0.5ppm target. You have 2 small fish in a fairly large tank, so i wouldn't expect parameters to get too bad too quickly though. If you are changing water fairly regularly anyway you may never hit that 0.5ppm combined.

Pristine water will help your fish, so i would be changing water daily until things improve. Maybe 25% to 30% every day. Yes, aquarium salt can help. 1 rounded tablespoon per 5 gallons, if you see no improvement after a week, double the dosage. Remember to add in more salt in proportion to any water changes.