Lyretail molly diagnosis...help!!! Lots of pics.

[pyralis101]

Setup:

40 gallon
Amonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
PH 7ish
Hardness 50

2 large adult koi angels
3 black lyretal mollies
4 tangerine mollies
1 twig cat


History: 2 months ago, one of my black lyretails started hiding and heavy breathing. Would only come out for food. A week later would not come out of hiding even for food. Died 2 weeks later in hiding...no idea why. No noticable physical signs.

Now I have another black lyretail that went into hiding for two weeks and wouldn't eat. No heavy breathing. No addition signs. After two weeks has started coming out to eat and is slowly coming out to play on occasion. Other black mollie chases her around the tank aggressively whenever she comes out - started when she got sick.

Herein is the problem. Today I noticed she has white spots/almost fuzzy all over her body. First I thought ich because for months one of my angels gets 4 or 5 white salt type specs on different fins, and then they disappear. She usually has 1 spec. The other angel will occasionally get 1 spec, but it also disappears, and he almost never has any. This has been going on for months. No other fish with specs in the tank.

i have notices today one tangerine might have a bit of the white on her head, but she has a strange coloration and she won't stay still long enough for me to get a good luck so it might be nothing (my tangerines all have ADHD).

I have uploaded a ton of photos of my black molly. I suspect fungus, but no others infected. Any help greatly appreciated.

 

[AilyNC]

I don't think it's ich but @Colin_T would be best to ask. If it's ich you can treat with heat by raising temp to 30 degrees celsius.

Post #16 (on second page of this thread) gives treatment details.

What is ICH?

WHAT IS ICH? Ich or Whitespot is a parasitic protozoan that infects fresh, brackish and saltwater fishes. It is identified by small white spots that appear on the fish's body & fins. There are several stages to this parasite's lifecycle and it must be noted that the parasite can only be killed...

www.fishforums.net

 

[pyralis101]

I don't think it's ich but @Colin_T would be best to ask. If it's ich you can treat with heat by raising temp to 30 degrees celsius.

Post #16 (on second page of this thread) gives treatment details.

What is ICH?

WHAT IS ICH? Ich or Whitespot is a parasitic protozoan that infects fresh, brackish and saltwater fishes. It is identified by small white spots that appear on the fish's body & fins. There are several stages to this parasite's lifecycle and it must be noted that the parasite can only be killed...

www.fishforums.net

If it we're ich, one of the other 8 fish would show signs as well right?

 

[Colin_T]

Any chance of a picture that is in focus?

Your GH is too soft for mollies. They need a GH over 250ppm.
Angels and twig catfish come from water with a GH under 100ppm.

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Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

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 filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration when using medications because they reduce the dissolved oxygen in the water.

Add some salt (see directions below).

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SALT
You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea salt or 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.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 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, 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 but the higher dose rate (4 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres) will affect some plants and some snails. The lower dose rate will not affect 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.