Seemingly faded patch on one side of zebra danio

cdr06

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Hello,

firstly, sorry if this is the wrong category, please do correct me if I am wrong.

Yesterday I noticed a white patch on one side of my female zebra danio, she doesn't seem affected by it or anything and is behaving normally. Just curious of what it could be and if it needs treating or not. I have attached an image below, obviously not the best image seeing as how they are such active fish:
20220211_150853.jpg

Appreciate any help, thanks!


Edit: I have had the fish for about a month, never noticed it until recently.
 
Does it appear fuzzy??? Or like wool?
It's so hard to tell, it doesn't stay still long enough to actually look! It doesn't look like it's coming out of the skin or anything though from what I can currently make out, just seems to be discolouration or something.
 
Do you have a quarantine tank? If do I’d say put her in the empty tank just in case it’s a disease . I made the mistake of not doing that with neon tetra and they all died
 
Do you have a quarantine tank? If do I’d say put her in the empty tank just in case it’s a disease . I made the mistake of not doing that with neon tetra and they all died

I have a little tank, but it isn't set up. If I were to do this, is there a treatment you would recommend?
 
Well, My fear is that its cotton wool disease. In that case it would spread to you other fish and eventually kill them. But theres no known treatment. fungal infections in fish are less common than parasites or bacteria. They typically appear as white cottony or "furry" growths on fish but can also be internal. They can be caused by substandard water quality, bad food or open wounds, but there are many other causes. i would say i guess put her in the quaritine tank and monitar her.
 
Well, My fear is that its cotton wool disease. In that case it would spread to you other fish and eventually kill them. But theres no known treatment. fungal infections in fish are less common than parasites or bacteria. They typically appear as white cottony or "furry" growths on fish but can also be internal. They can be caused by substandard water quality, bad food or open wounds, but there are many other causes. i would say i guess put her in the quaritine tank and monitar her.
Appreciate your help, I think I am going to leave it in the main tank for now but closely monitor it over the coming days. I did some research and found a danio with seemingly the exact same thing and the cause was put down to aggression from other fish (something I have noticed recently) and scratching up against abrasive surfaces, this has been since I started preparing my tank for planting amazon swords, by two days ago disturbing the gravel and adding more whilst the fish remained in the tank, and then today actually planting them, hopefully over the coming days they will settle as conditions remain stable. Also sorry for the loss of your neons.
 
Is the fish still alive and has the white patch changed during the last few days?

It could be a graze from being startled when under or near a rock and that has scratched it. Or it could be the start of an infection.

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Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge. This removes the biofilm on the glass and the biofilm will contain lots of harmful bacteria, fungus, protozoans and various other microscopic life forms.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day for a week. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the dissolved oxygen in the water.

If there's no improvement after a week with daily water changes and gravel cleans, or it gets worse during that time, post some more pictures and add some salt (see directions below).

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.

When you first add salt, add the salt to a small bucket of tank water and dissolve the salt. Then slowly pour the salt water into the tank near the filter outlet. Add the salt over a couple of minutes.
 

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