Anybody have Rams with spots on their head???

[grimlock3000]

One of my rams has 4 light colored dots around each eye, and one directly on the center of his head. The Ram is about one inch long. The other Ram in my tank does not have this. I would think it is Ich, but it is almost perfectly symetrical.

 

[TankGirl]

Sometimes rams have irridescent "spangling" on them, and this may be it, but it is not specified on the head in descriptions of either the male or female, so I am not sure.

 

[Allivymar]

Can you get us a pic grimmie?

I don't see any on mine, but then again, I'm treating the tank with Furan 2 (lost the blue rams ) and its a light sensitive med...I can't tell in the dark if they do LOL

 

[grimlock3000]

I can not take a good pic of these fish no matter what. My digital camera is near uselss then trying to take fish pics. I need to buy something with a faster shutter speed. Or use the flash, is that OK for the fish?

It looks like Ich, jsut treally odd that is is in such a pattern. I am dosing the tank now with Ich meds. I was going to try raising the temp but I am not sure how well some of my fish could take the heat

 

[madasafish]

I really doubt it's ich if they're so perfectly symmetrical. Check on the other one really carefully--esp. the fins--for small dots. If you don't see them at all, it's very possible it's just a coloration thing. Rams can be very varied in coloration and somewhat in patterning. I saw some green ones on the cover of an aquarium fish book today. Wow! I almost took a picture of the book in the store to post here... The ultimate fish nerd thing to do.

Flash... hmm... I've noticed many ppl on the site do use flash for pictures (sometimes self-defeating, as it reflects off the glass so well), but I'm not sure I'd do that with rams. When I take pix I almost never get them of my fast-moving fish, as I generally adjust my shutter speed to quite low to deal with the light levels. But you know, the lights in the aquarium are so powerful, you'd think they would be like outside! But they aren't...

Do you have a way of manually adjusting your camera's focus? If so, try taking a picture at Aperture 2.0 (if you have that wide an aperture) and with shutter speed of 15-30. You might get a darkish picture with just enough light to show the spots you're talking about. And if you post a small enough picture, the camera shake/fish movement might not blur the picture too much. If your camera doesn't allow you to adjust manually, just shut off the flash and take pictures as it will allow you to.

 

[grimlock3000]

Not being able to adjust the shutter speed is what is getting me. I am using a Fuji 2650 digital camera that works great for general use but really sucks at action shots. Seems like the shutter speed is terribly slow, or controlled entirely by the camera itself. Take a look at this:

Just panning the camera in front of the TV catches multiple refreshes. And the manual focus is pretty useless too

I might get myself a new camera soon

Anyway, I am treating this like Ich for now, and only using the medicine at half strength. If the spots do not go away after a couple days of meds, or at least change, I am going to have to assume it is just part of the fish.

 

[madasafish]

Who is that? Hyde from "That 70s Show?"

Yeah, multiple images, but good quality by the look of it. Well, manual digis are coming down in price nowadays, so you could almost certainly get one affordably now. I've got the Sony Cybershot F717. Works like a charm, and might even be affordable now! (Got it as a cumulative birthday present last year)

 

[madasafish]

*Grimlock*

I'd check out this ram picture (half way down page on left--a small picture): http://hjem.get2net.dk/Best_of_the_Web/blue rams.html

This guy has many white spots, all of which seem to be ich. A closer look seems to reveal that these are part of the markings. Perhaps this is similar to what you see on your rams?

 

[grimlock3000]

Yeah that is Hyde from That 70s Show

I have treated for Ich twice now, with a water change in between the doses. My Ram still has the same spots on its head, in the same places, and none of the other fish in the tank have spots. I am going to let the Ich meds float around for a few days before putting in any carbon just to make sure. Also got the tank temp up a few degrees, so if it DOES turn out to be Ich, I can get the temp into the correct range faster.