What Causes White Patches?

[Squirrelbuddies]

Six days ago, I brought home 4 white cloud mountain minnows (to go with the other 7 I have in a 55 gallon tank), 2 zebra danios for my daughter's tank and the last oto in the store to go with 5 others I have in a 72 gallon.

Fortunately, they all went in a quarantine tank -- a nicely established 38 gallon, lightly planted tank.

One by one they have been dying. All I have left is the oto and one danio. When I purchased the WCMM's I couldn't tell they had white patches on their bodies until I got them home. (The LFS has very low light over the tanks.) The dead danio did not have white patches, but when I scooped him out, I noticed his anal area was very red.

The white patches on the WCMM's were flat -- not fuzzy or wooly looking at all. Also, I noticed when I got the danios home (they were in a separate bag), that the water in the bag was light blue -- which I image was from a parasite med.

Aside from being extremely disappointed that I was sold diseased fish, I would like to know what was wrong. I'm worried if the last two survive that they could bring disease to my other tanks even if they show no symptoms after the quarantine period...

Any ideas what the problem was/is? I've done a bit of research but cannot come up with anything definitive.

Ironically, I did not buy fish from my favorite (or what used to be my favorite) LFS as ALL of their freshwaters tanks showed signs of ICK Now I have no where local to buy fish

 

[dabaers]

Look up Columnaris and see if those pictures look anything like what was on your fish.
Good luck with them.

Kath

Six days ago, I brought home 4 white cloud mountain minnows (to go with the other 7 I have in a 55 gallon tank), 2 zebra danios for my daughter's tank and the last oto in the store to go with 5 others I have in a 72 gallon.

Fortunately, they all went in a quarantine tank -- a nicely established 38 gallon, lightly planted tank.

One by one they have been dying. All I have left is the oto and one danio. When I purchased the WCMM's I couldn't tell they had white patches on their bodies until I got them home. (The LFS has very low light over the tanks.) The dead danio did not have white patches, but when I scooped him out, I noticed his anal area was very red.

The white patches on the WCMM's were flat -- not fuzzy or wooly looking at all. Also, I noticed when I got the danios home (they were in a separate bag), that the water in the bag was light blue -- which I image was from a parasite med.

Aside from being extremely disappointed that I was sold diseased fish, I would like to know what was wrong. I'm worried if the last two survive that they could bring disease to my other tanks even if they show no symptoms after the quarantine period...

Any ideas what the problem was/is? I've done a bit of research but cannot come up with anything definitive.

Ironically, I did not buy fish from my favorite (or what used to be my favorite) LFS as ALL of their freshwaters tanks showed signs of ICK Now I have no where local to buy fish

 

[Squirrelbuddies]

Thanks Kath -- I studied my fish disease book again (certainly not recommended for those with weak stomachs!!) and based on the photos -- it seems to resemble neon tetra disease more than columnaris. What a pain in the neck this is -- I swear the guy at the store knew these fish were sick as he kept trying to get me to buy the golden WCMM's instead.

Now it looks like the little oto may have ich as I noticed two white dots on him this AM....

 

[Tolak]

I would treat it as columnaris, that's what it sounds like. The bluish tint could have been methalyne blue, used to treat fungal problems. Often columnaris is misidentified as a fungus, when it is actually bacterial. That might explain the bluish tint to the water.