3 week old hobbyist needing help. Is it ICH?

[jqb]

Hey guy, I bough 7 glass bloodfin tetras on Saturday, and notice a white spot on one yesterday. I am unsure if it’s ich or what. Please advice.

 

[jqb]

i started increase the heater to 84f, should get there tonight. I also added 5tablespoon aquatic rock salt to the tank(55 gallons) the correct dosage is 10 tablespoon, but since I’m unsure I didn’t want to do the full dosage( can always add more) Also have ich medication. On hand.

 

[jqb]

Any help or need extra info would be appreciated, just don’t want to lose my first set of fish. And it’s a planted tank.

 

[jqb]

unable to add video.

 

[Andy Sager]

unable to add video.

Well the good news is that it's not ick. Ick will look like salt crystals on the fins and body. Ick will also not attach to the eyes like it's look alike parasite ( Epistylis) does. What you need to determine is if the spot is ON the fish or IN the fish's flesh. ( Your pictures are blurry when enlarged. ) If it's not ON the fish, the fish may have been bruised when caught or hit by another fish and that is just a mucus covering to protect the wound. If it's ON the fish, it will appear like a bump when you view the fish either head long or from above. For now, neither need to have been treated with heat so I'd stop raising the temp. You need to be careful when reducing the temp as THAT can stress the fish and cause an ICK outbreak. You don't want to drop the temp more than 2 degrees in a 12 hour period.
For the future, it's better to get a good diagnosis before changing anything or starting medications. This is why: Using the wrong meds won't help and can possibly damage the fish. In one case, treating ICK with heat is not really a treatment, it's more a way to rapidly have the parasite complete it's life cycle. However, heat is the worst treatment for Epistylis. So you see why proper diagnosis is key to successful treatments.

As for videos, you can not upload videos directly to AA but you can upload to your favorite host (like Youtube or Imgur, etc) and post the URL here to the video.

Lastly, is your tank cycled and if so, how did you do this?

 

[jqb]

Ya rookies mistake, tried to research but couldn’t find much.. I had my suspicious it wasn’t ich, but I’m not seasoned enough to know. I checked the little guy out, no bump so could have been hit. Was a bit worried because he wasn’t eating. I will bring the temp back down the next 3 -4 days, currently at 83. I cycled the tank using API aqua essential for dechlorine, then added StartSmart complete. Experienced bacteria bloom for about 4 days, once it’s cleared I waited another week before adding fish to the tank. Before adding fishes, I again added a little more API quick start just to be sure.

 

[jqb]

Link to the vid.

 

[Andy Sager]

I hate to tell you but most " Bacteria in a bottle" products do not work. A study was done and found that only Fritzyme #7 , Fritz Turbo700 and Tetra quickstart ( which is the same as Dr Tims) were the only ones that showed to be effective. Do not be surprised if you start to see a rise in ammonia within about 5-7 days. If that happens, you will need to do water changes to keep the ammonia level below .25ppm. Do not depend on " detoxifying" products over doing water changes. You will be doing a " fish in" cycling which means you should not be adding any more fish until the process is completed. We can get more into that process should the ammonia start to rise.