Pin holes and white spot on black moor

[whatisacanada]

I purchased a black moor 6 days ago from my local PetSmart to add to my oranda tank, but as I got home from the store I noticed many holes in her fins. I decided to quarantine her and treat with pimafix and melafix.
After 6 days I have noticed no changes in the holes on her fins, and the other day I noticed a rather large white spot on her side. As I was doing a water change today I decided to see if I could get her to swim into a glass bowl so I could get a good look at the spot as her quarantine is a large tub with a filter and bubbler (I did not have an empty tank available for her) and I can't get a good look at her in the tub.
I'm unsure of when the white spot appeared. I don't know if it was smaller when I got her and it has grown or if it has been the same size the entire time because I don't often get a good look at her sides while in the quarantine.
Does anyone know what this spot or the holes could be? Is the pimafix or melafix an acceptable treatment or do I need to be using something else?

 

[Colin_T]

Hi and welcome to the forum

The white patch on the side of the fish (just before the tail) looks like excess mucous. This is normally caused by poor water quality or a protozoan infection.

Check the water quality for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH. Check the general hardness (GH) too if you can but it isn't as much of an issue as the other 4 things to check. If the water is good monitor the fish and see if it is rubbing on objects in the tank. If it is then it has a protozoan infection.

Try doing a huge water change on the quarantine tank each day for a week and see if that helps.

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The holes in the fins could be a bacterial infection, protozoan or just physical damage. There have been a lot of fish appearing lately with holes in their fins and they don't get better. I think this is a new bacterial infection that is affecting ornamental aquarium fish.

You can try adding 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 will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that.

The salt will help with protozoan and minor fungal and bacterial infections. If it does not help and the holes get bigger over the next week or two, then you might want to try anti-biotics. However, these should only be used as a last resort and in a quarantine tank because they wipe out filter bacteria.

 

[FishGuest5123]

Just to rule out velvet, take a flashlight and shine it on the white spot. If it’s reflective then it’s velvet. If not, your clear on that disease. It just looked a little like velvet to me. Is it copper in color at all? If not, then I agree with treatment above.