Missing scales?

[Daven]

New to cichlids, and after buying my first ones I ended up with frequent flashing and a couple white spots in a couple tails. Started with acei and had also just gotten some yellow labs just before noticing spots :/ So I have had the water at 87* and slowly added some aquarium salts as well to try and get rid of it. My first illness unfortunately. Now a couple of them appear to e missing scales, I would think because of flashing before. There don't seem to do it as often now. This looks to be indeed missing scales, right? To make things worse I just added them to my new 75 gallon so I'm not sure if it's aggression related. But I haven't seen any actual damage in person from their chases

Just looking for reassurance that nothing too bad is going on now since I was hoping to be done with the ich


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[Daven]

Also, they are very active and don't seem stressed at all


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[evil Nick]

could just be color splotches. My angel has some areas that are much paler than the rest that look like that.

Maybe the flashing was PH issues to with differences from the water in the store to your tank?

 

[Daven]

I think the ph should have been the same. But the flashing was after a couple days from bringing them home. I see them do it the odd time still and its getting worse. Looking at it yesterday it seemed pretty apearant that it was from bashing its head against the rocks


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[evil Nick]

have you checked your water levels with a liquid (not test strips) kit?

If your levels are fine maybe throw some stress coat + in there, I Do and it seems to help them.
try some prima/melafix. It doesnt really "cure" anything but helps make them more comfortable and helps with healing any sore and open wounds.

second question after re reading your post. You "added salts"? Arent a lot of cichilid at least slightly brackish? Are you sure these are fresh water fish? perhaps adding the salts helped because they need brackish or near brackish water to live.

 

[Daven]

No, they aren't brackish fish. I added the salts to help ensure the ich is dealt with. And for water chemistry, I have no amonia and some nitrites (I change out water once it gets to around .4 ppm. Using nutrafin liquid tests. Unfortunately this is due to them being a bit larger than I thought compared to the guppies I had in there before. Ended up being a bit more of a bio load then I had set up :/

They seem to be better now and I've only seen them flash the odd time which seems to be a more normal amount for them. Apearantly it's usual for them to do it the odd time as a display to others but before was very excessive. So it would appear that the ich is dealt with and hopefully soon they can heal up nice. I appreciate the input guys


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