Treating ICH

[Larougeraven]

Hello,

Two of my long skirt tetras have what my internet search is saying is Ich.
One has two white blobby things on it's tail fin and the other has one white blobby thing on it's dosal fin.

I was looking at Amazon for Ich medication and read a comment that said that the Tetra brand is probably one of the best to get in Canada, but scaleless fish, such as loaches, could die if used at full strength. I have loaches.


When I first noticed, I changed 50% water, I added aquarium salt, and Melafix by API. I raised the tank temp to 80 which is max for my community.


Before I have purchase ich meds, I need to make sure that its ich. I have provided 3 photos of the one fish, I couldnt get a photo of the other fish.

 

[Aiken Drum]

The photos arent very clear. It looks like ich, but cant be sure. Your description of blobby doesnt sound like ich. Ich looks like a grain of salt.

Have you added anything new into the tank recently that could have introduced the parasite?

How long have they been infected?

Are there any signs on other fish?

 

[Larougeraven]

The photos arent very clear. It looks like ich, but cant be sure. Your description of blobby doesnt sound like ich. Ich looks like a grain of salt.

Have you added anything new into the tank recently that could have introduced the parasite?

How long have they been infected?

Are there any signs on other fish?

This is the clearest picture I have. Nothing has been recently added to tank. All the fish including the ones with these are acting normal.

 

[Aiken Drum]

The ich parasite doesnt spontaneously appear. The only way it can get into your tank is if you introduce it by adding something that is already infected with the parasite. This is usually an infected fish, water or substrate from an infected aquarium, its possible a plant or decoration could bring in a parasite that happened to have dropped off the fish and landed on whatever before it found its way into the substrate to reproduce.

If nothing new has gone into the aquarium then its unlikely to be ich. The only way it could be is if you historically had ich in the tank and whatever you did to treat it didnt work. The parasites could survive for years with otherwise healthy fish. Something happens to disrupt a fishes immune system and the parasite manifests again.

If you are thinking that pinkish mass on the tail is ich, its not. It looks like lymphocystis to me, but there are better people on the forum at diagnosing than me. It could be an infection of the wound after the ich parasite has left the fish though.

Take a read through the "unhealthy fish" sticky and give as much detail as you are able. That will diagnose whats wrong.

https://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f17/before-posting-about-unhealthy-fish-read-this-32451.html

 

[Colin_T]

Can't see anything on the dorsal fin.

On the tail it's either Lymphocystis or a tumour. It's a weird spot for a tumour but in the right spot for Lymphocystis. However, Lymphocystis doesn't normally have orange in it. Either way there's no treatment for tumours or Lymphocystis.

Lymphocystis is a stress virus that normally occurs on newly imported fish and goes away by itself a few months later when the fish are kept in good conditions. The black widow/ skirt tetra is looking old and it might be the virus, or a tumour has decided to grow there.

I would leave it until the fish has trouble swimming then euthanise it.

 

[Larougeraven]

I have two fish with similar issues, this one on their tail, and the other (super hard to photograph) has it on their dosal fin. I transfered them about 2 months ago. They are both about 5 years old. Got them Dec 2018 or Jan 2019. I think it might be red vs orange? Like a blood vessel or something, the other one doesn't look this bad.



They are not acting up and no one in the tank seems to be acting up either. So hopefully it will go away with time.


Thank you.