I Need Help URGENTLY

[Carli Cohn]

Hello so I’ve had my Red Wag Mickey Mouse Platy for a little bit now and I noticed this on his left side by his tail. (Look at pictures) I don’t think it’s the Ich. I’m not completely sure what it might be though. I took multiple photos for a good view. If someone could help me, please do!!!

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

Assuming the water quality is good and there is no ammonia or nitrite in the water, and the nitrate is less than 20ppm, and the pH is above 6.8, I would say the fish has a protozoan infection.

How long has the tank been set up for?
How long have you had the fish?
How long has the fish had this issue for?
Have you added any new fish or plants in the last 2 weeks?
What other fish are in the tank?

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Try doing a 75% water change and gravel clean each day for a week and see if it improves. If it does not look better after 2 big water changes, then get a broad spectrum fish medication or a whitespot medication and treat the tank with that.

To work out the volume of water in the tank:
measure length x width x height in cm.
divide by 1000.
= volume in litres.

When you measure the height, measure from the top of the substrate to the top of the water level.

There is a calculator/ converter in the "How To Tips" at the top of this page that will let you convert litres to gallons if you need it.

Remove carbon from the filter before treating or it will absorb the medication and stop it working.

Wipe the inside of the glass down, do a 75% water change and complete gravel clean. And clean the filter before treating.

 

[Carli Cohn]

How long has the tank been set up for?
How long have you had the fish?
How long has the fish had this issue for?
Have you added any new fish or plants in the last 2 weeks?
What other fish are in the tank?
1. I'd say the tank has been set up for about a month, month and a half
2. I've had all but 4 of the fish for about 2 weeks
3. I just noticed this fish having the problem with in the past 3-4 days, I started to notice that he would always hide and be away from everyone else in the tank, and then I saw the thing on his side.
4. Yes. I added 4 new guppies to the tank within the last 2 days and a couple plants as well.
5. I have:
- 4 Mollies
- 6 Guppies
- 4 Patties

 

[Colin_T]

You can try salt instead of chemical medications. You add 2 heaped tablespoons of rock salt (aquarium salt), sea salt or swimming pool salt per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours, you double that dose so there is 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres of water.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks and see what happens.

Because you only have mollies, guppies & platies in the tank, you can push the salt levels up quite high without stressing the fish. These fish will tolerate half strength seawater without any issues. So if there is no improvement after 4 days of salt, you can add more salt again so there is 6 or 8 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres. However, 4 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres of water, normally does the job.

If you add salt to the water, you will need to add more salt to the water when you do a water change.
eg: you drain out 50% of the tank water. The new water should have salt added to it before it is added to the tank. But you only need to treat the new water, the 50% that you add.

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If there's no improvement after a week of salt you can add a broad spectrum medication that treats bacterial, fungal and protozoan infections. If you do add chemicals to treat the fish remove carbon from the filter before treating the tank.

You can normally use most chemical medications in fresh or salt water but just check the directions to make sure you can.

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After you have finished treating them with salt and or medication, do a 10% water change each day for a week. Do not add salt to this new water. Then do 20% water changes each day for a week. Do not add salt to this new water. After 2 weeks of small water changes you can do bigger water changes again. You want to do small water changes to slowly dilute the salt in the water so there is less stress to the fish.

Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.