Okay, so I changed Darby's water today (40%) and have been watching him closely. He's been doing his "nose dive" again, and I wondered if maybe it was because the new water didn't have the same concentration of salt that I'd previously placed in his tank.
After watching him for a couple of hours, I noticed a small spot on his side where it looked like he had scraped himself on his decoration during one of his swoops. (You can see a video here of him doing it.)
Naturally, this got me worried, and I've been wondering if his color was normally not very brilliant or if he was just settling in a bit.
Anyway, long story short, I did some further investigation and discovered that you can shine a flashlight on their bodies to look for a "golden dust". Lo and behold, he is shining with golden flakes, particularly on his tail fin!!!
He hasn't shown other signs such as clamped fins, under eating or being lethargic (on the contrary, he's been quite active and hungry!), but I do notice that his dorsal fin hasn't been exactly standing upright, until I added the salt to his water about 4 days ago.
I just had to post in the hopes that someone might have some advice. I've added another 1/4 teaspoon of pure sodium chloride (sea salt) to the tank and turned off the light (as I've read that the parasite needs light to live). I'll be going to the petstore after work today to see if I can pick up some meds.
Would someone mind shining their fish with a flashlight to tell me if they have any kind of shining gold looking dust on them? I don't want to overreact and medicate him if it's just a case of being an "over protective fish mum". I'll see if I can get a close up of his fins for an example shot.
Edit: Here are some pics I took, they're on the larger side, so be warned.
After watching him for a couple of hours, I noticed a small spot on his side where it looked like he had scraped himself on his decoration during one of his swoops. (You can see a video here of him doing it.)
Naturally, this got me worried, and I've been wondering if his color was normally not very brilliant or if he was just settling in a bit.
Anyway, long story short, I did some further investigation and discovered that you can shine a flashlight on their bodies to look for a "golden dust". Lo and behold, he is shining with golden flakes, particularly on his tail fin!!!
He hasn't shown other signs such as clamped fins, under eating or being lethargic (on the contrary, he's been quite active and hungry!), but I do notice that his dorsal fin hasn't been exactly standing upright, until I added the salt to his water about 4 days ago.
I just had to post in the hopes that someone might have some advice. I've added another 1/4 teaspoon of pure sodium chloride (sea salt) to the tank and turned off the light (as I've read that the parasite needs light to live). I'll be going to the petstore after work today to see if I can pick up some meds.
Would someone mind shining their fish with a flashlight to tell me if they have any kind of shining gold looking dust on them? I don't want to overreact and medicate him if it's just a case of being an "over protective fish mum". I'll see if I can get a close up of his fins for an example shot.
Edit: Here are some pics I took, they're on the larger side, so be warned.
