Tiny, white dots (spherical) on angelfish

[demurefemme]

Hello all!

Well, three years into my life as a fish mom, I appear to be battling my first fish illness. I noticed last night that my angelfish had 2 or 3 tiny, tiny white, opaque bubble-like dots near his face. Tonight he appears to have one or two more. I've looked around the net, and first thought ich might be the culprit, but everything that I read about ich seems to say that the white spots shouldn't be raised if it's ich. He's still acting perfectly normal, swimming around, terrorizing my other fish, eating like a little pig, but these little dots are scaring me! One of my mollies (who doesn't have any spots) has been acting strangely, as well, but everyone else in the tank is totally symptom and spot free.

Does this sound like ich, or some other sort of parasite? Or is this something else that I just haven't seen listed on any of the disease guides I've found?

Thanks in advance for all your help, Shark and I both are grateful!
~anya

 

[mushroomfarie]

How far do they stick out. I have seen many a case of ich. Sometimes it does kind of look like that. I saw ich raised before. But if they are very large bumps then it might be something different. Just from what you said though.... It sounds like ich to me.

 

[demurefemme]

hm...they're perfectly spherical, like little tiny bubbles....i would say that they stick out probably about 1/3 mm, maybe 1/2 mm. that's probably about their diameter. they're very small, and there are five of them. I would guess at this point i will need to treat the whole tank, rather than just putting shark into a quarantine tank, if the culprit is indeed ich. ick

 

[Menagerie]

Try looking through these sites to diagnose your fish:
http://www.aquatronicsonline.com/hobbyist/hobbyist3.htm
http://www.aqualink.com/disease/sdisease.html#ich
http://fish.mongabay.com/diseases.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/AqBizSubWebIndex/fishdisho.htm
http://www.fishpondinfo.com/health.htm

This article has pics of ich. If it is ich, do the heat and salt method. I am currently using that method and it is working great!

 

[demurefemme]

thanks so much for the great links!

i have aquarium salt here for my betta, so i can start treating my tank tonight.

also, i noticed that on two of the sites, they mentioned adding copper and aquarium salt to the tank always in order to ward off disease-is this safe? will my fish (angel, mollies, danio, tetras, loaches...and a chinese algae eater i could do without) be able to adapt to the added minerals?

 

[Menagerie]

I would not add copper to a tank with loaches. Scaleless fish cannot handle it. They can all handle a bit of salt and higher temps, so stick with that. I know it works!