Ich?

[Stargazee]

Yes, I believe it had ich. Get your heater and raise temp to 86F for 10 days. Vacuum your gravel and do water changes every 24-48 hours. Good luck, all should be fine. I hope you quarantined him. If not, treat the whole tank.

Hey can you possibly take a look at the last message on this thread? Heat treatment is over and they are sick again. It doesn’t look like ich yet but need to start treatment ASAP! I included pics. Thank you.

 

[Stargazee]

Ok, 14 days plus 4 on heat and salt and now they are starting to present with the following pictures. I thought it was from aggressivesness or lowering the temp back to normal but thinking not. It this velvet, s fungus or right before the white spots of ich come back? Should I now treat with malachite green and formalin?

Another fishkeeper told me to use Ich X and Maracyn 2. That should take care of either fungus, ich or velvet right?

 

[Silencedogood]

Another fishkeeper told me to use Ich X and Maracyn 2. That should take care of either fungus, ich or velvet right?

If you have ick, (which it certainly looks like you do), use a treatment specifically made for treating ick only. Any other treatment will be focused on other things instead of ick directly. Like I mentioned before, salt is the best treatment for ick. Personally, I would transfer all of the fish to another tank and then treat them with heat and salt. But if you don't have another tank just do a salt and heat treatment again. Ick can linger for a while.

What are your current water parameters?

 

[RainGamma]

Wouldn’t using a UV light help? Heard it does.

 

[Silencedogood]

Wouldn’t using a UV light help? Heard it does.

@RainGamma a UV sterilizer only kills free-floating one-celled organisms. When you see ick on a fish, it is burrowed into the fish's slime coat. That's why you need heat to speed up the life cycle of ick so that the salt can kill it in its free-swimming stage.

 

[RainGamma]

@RainGamma a UV sterilizer only kills free-floating one-celled organisms. When you see ick on a fish, it is burrowed into the fish's slime coat. That's why you need heat to speed up the life cycle of ick so that the salt can kill it in its free-swimming stage.

Oh okay that makes sense.

 

[Silencedogood]

Yeah, there are a lot of misconceptions about ick. I had a really bad case of it last year that wiped out my whole tank and the only treatment I didn't try was the heat and salt treatment together. After I tried that I never had ick reappearing.

 

[Colin_T]

I think it is excess mucous and possibly the start of "hole in the head disease" or "head and lateral line disease". This is normally caused by a dirty environment that encourages Hexamita and other nasty pathogens to grow.

Try doing a 75% water change and gravel cleaning the substrate every day for 2 weeks.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter materials in a bucket of tank water.

What are you feeding the cichlids?
Mbuna need some plant matter in their diet. They will eat aquarium plants and graze on algae growing on the glass and rocks.

 

[Stargazee]

I think it is excess mucous and possibly the start of "hole in the head disease" or "head and lateral line disease". This is normally caused by a dirty environment that encourages Hexamita and other nasty pathogens to grow.

Try doing a 75% water change and gravel cleaning the substrate every day for 2 weeks.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. Wash filter materials in a bucket of tank water.

What are you feeding the cichlids?
Mbuna need some plant matter in their diet. They will eat aquarium plants and graze on algae growing on the glass and rocks.

I was doing 1/3 water changes every day or other day while temp was high. I give them replenish. I even took all the rocks out and cleaned under those. Do you mean 75% water change daily or initially and then clean gravel daily? Adding new water I use Seachem Prime and let it set for a few minutes. That gets the chlorine neutralized fast enough right?

Why did they present with symptoms 3 days after lowering back down the temperature?

It has been about 2 weeks since I rinsed out the filter. Will clean again. I feed them alternating the sheet algae, veggie cichlid tablets, a tiny flake, sinking algae, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce and peas. I have Anubias which they do not like to eat so it’s doing well.

Should I try the Ich x? Or maracyn 2?

Thank you,

 

[Stargazee]

It’s just been

Yeah, there are a lot of misconceptions about ick. I had a really bad case of it last year that wiped out my whole tank and the only treatment I didn't try was the heat and salt treatment together. After I tried that I never had ick reappearing.

They were on heat treatment for 10 days, lowered temp and it came back. Then heat treatment for 18 days and now it has been 3 days since lowered temp. I did use salt but not the full dose. I am conflicted about raising the temp again now, and teetering on turning back up the temp or using Ich X.

 

[Colin_T]

Another fishkeeper told me to use Ich X and Maracyn 2. That should take care of either fungus, ich or velvet right?

Maracyn 2 is an anti-biotic and won't do anything to treat whitespot or other protozoan parasites like velvet, costia, chilodonella or trichodina.
Maracyn 2 will kill the beneficial filter bacteria so don't use this.

---------------------------
Summing up, 1-3. Please correct anything that isn't right.

1) The water temperature was raised to 86F for at least 2 weeks (18 days).

2) The white spots disappeared off the fish for 6 days an didn't come back until 3 days after the temperature was lowered.

3) You added nothing to the tank during that time.


If this is correct, it cannot be whitespot unless you reintroduced the parasites from a contaminated aquarium.
Do you have any other aquariums in the house?
Were any of the fish rubbing on objects in the tank?

---------------------------
If it's hole in the head disease, it should respond to Metronidazole. However, I would give it a couple of weeks and see what happens.

Gravel clean the substrate every day, and replace 75% of the water each day when you do the gravel clean. Do this for 1 week and then post some more pictures of the same fish from the same angles you have already posted. If the spots are in the same place in 1 week it is not whitespot and you should treat with Metronidazole.

 

[Stargazee]

Maracyn 2 is an anti-biotic and won't do anything to treat whitespot or other protozoan parasites like velvet, costia, chilodonella or trichodina.
Maracyn 2 will kill the beneficial filter bacteria so don't use this.

---------------------------
Summing up, 1-3. Please correct anything that isn't right.

1) The water temperature was raised to 86F for at least 2 weeks (18 days).

2) The white spots disappeared off the fish for 6 days an didn't come back until 3 days after the temperature was lowered.

3) You added nothing to the tank during that time.


If this is correct, it cannot be whitespot unless you reintroduced the parasites from a contaminated aquarium.
Do you have any other aquariums in the house?
Were any of the fish rubbing on objects in the tank?

---------------------------
If it's hole in the head disease, it should respond to Metronidazole. However, I would give it a couple of weeks and see what happens.

Gravel clean the substrate every day, and replace 75% of the water each day when you do the gravel clean. Do this for 1 week and then post some more pictures of the same fish from the same angles you have already posted. If the spots are in the same place in 1 week it is not whitespot and you should treat with Metronidazole.

Yes, that is correct...1, 2 and 3. I added nothing to the tank and no other aquariums. Fish were not rubbing but now they are. The other fishkeeper though it was a fungus...he said the spots were looking more fuzzy and did not look like Ich. I don’t see grains of salt, maybe 1 or 2 but mostly raised areas of the mucous coat and fins look like they have white something on them.

 

[Stargazee]

Yes, that is correct...1, 2 and 3. I added nothing to the tank and no other aquariums. Fish were not rubbing but now they are. The other fishkeeper though it was a fungus...he said the spots were looking more fuzzy and did not look like Ich. I don’t see grains of salt, maybe 1 or 2 but mostly raised areas of the mucous coat and fins look like they have white something on them.

And I definitely do not want to kill my bacteria!

 

[Stargazee]

And I definitely do not want to kill my bacteria!

Should I try the ick x, it does kill velvet, etc? I have been cleaning the substrate.

 

[Colin_T]

I doubt the problem is velvet (Oodinium). You can check the fish for velvet at night when the lights are off. Shine a torch on the fish and see if they have a gold sheen/ reflection. If they have the gold sheen, then they have velvet. However, velvet should have been wiped out when you did the heat treatment.

At this stage I would do big (75%) daily water changes for a week, and monitor the fish. Then post some more pictures of the fish.

I think it is hole in the head disease but will need more pictures in a week to see if the white dots have moved, or if they are still in the same place. If the dots are still in the same place on the fish after a week, it is hole in the head disease and will need treating with Metronidazole.

You should also keep an eye on the other fish to make sure nobody is picking on the one in the pictures.