Ich or Fungus?

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Kayakr01

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I thought it was ich; have been treating for 5 days at 85 degrees, water changes (not much); two of my fish have had the spots with no changes; from what I read about the ich life cycle I thought these spots would have gone away as they drop into the water but they are still there. Could it be something else?

upload_2019-1-15_20-17-19.jpeg
 
Hi and welcome to the forum :)

Sorry about the late response, this thread has only just become available. The moderators have been a bit slack again :)

Th picture is a blurry but it looks like white spot, however as you mentioned, the spots should be falling off the fish by now.

Make sure the water temperature is 30C (86F), not 85F.

Make sure the water quality is good and there is no ammonia or nitrite, and the nitrate is less than 20ppm.

Try doing a huge water change and gravel cleaning the substrate. If there is a water quality issue the water change should help. And a big water change will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water so there will be fewer attacking the fish.

If the water is good and the spots haven't reduced in number after a couple of days at 86F, perhaps look for a white spot medication. Anything with malachite green or copper sulphate in will work but do not use copper is you have snails or shrimp in the tank. And if you have catfish, eels or loaches, make sure you get a medication suitable for scaleless fish.

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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 with a clean fish sponge. Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. 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. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using medications or increasing the temperature because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.
 
Thank you for the feedback; the fish died 2 days later in quarantine. I am not sure if I overheated them or its fungus that finally got them. They did spend a day at 86F... I am finishing out a week or so using a 'biofriendly' med for ich. Wish me luck.
 
Thank you for the feedback; the fish died 2 days later in quarantine. I am not sure if I overheated them or its fungus that finally got them. They did spend a day at 86F... I am finishing out a week or so using a 'biofriendly' med for ich. Wish me luck.

You can forget fungus, and the heat (for this species it would have to be very high, over 90F). From the photo they had a very severe case of ich (white spot). When fish are this far into it, they often do not recover.

What medication are you using? And what fish are present?
 
The only biofriendly treatment for white spot is heat (30C/ 86F for 2 weeks).
 
The only biofriendly treatment for white spot is heat (30C/ 86F for 2 weeks).

My previous post may have been misunderstood. I was responding to the questions in post #3 about the heat or fungus killing the fish. Neither killed them. The ich was very severe, and the medication used (unmentioned so far) may have contributed to killing the fish.
 

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