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this past weekend i noticed my biggest rainbow having some very small white specks on his tail, as well as another one of my rainbows. it looked similar to very tiny grains of salt. i thought ick, so did a water change and added coppersafe. i checked the next day and the smaller rainbow seemed to be better (if i look close i can see maybe one speck), though he is not acting like himself, hiding but on the outside he seems to look pretty normal.
yesterday, i noticed these white small splotches on the big rainbow (as shown in the photo, though not clearly), today they have gotten a lot worse, as there is a lot more of them and are very visible when he's directly under the light. none of my other fish seem to have this so far. does anyone have a clue of what it is?.
also, recently i've had had to euthanize a few fish. one was a golden barb that had this red ulceration on his side for a couple of months and it was not getting better (i treated him once), it did look fine at one point but opened up again. also, another rainbow seemed to be looking pretty bad and started to have what looked like hemoraging near his tail and then one of my danios had it too. none of the other fish have gotten it since then and what the rainbow has is not what they had.
i have also had really bad luck stocking my tank recently too. i bought about 5 cories a few months back and all died within 3 days. i acclimated them over a couple of hours too. but that was a few months back. and just recenlty i bought an angelfish and it died the next day, though to tell you the truth, it didn't look so hot to begin with and i think the stress of the whole move did him in.
i have a 55 gallon tank which currently has 5 golden barbs, 3 black skirts, 3 rainbows and only 2 danios (since they have died over time).
i just checked the nitrites and they are at 0 (so i'm assuming so is the ammonia) the nitrates are a little below 5.
anyone have any ideas at all? i am getting really frustrated with my tank. i've had it for over a year now.

i am really really dreading if i have to treat the whole tank as everyone knows that causes havoc with the good bacteria and tends to make ammonia sky rocket.

here is the photo of the rainbow
http://diversify.nu/rainbow.jpg


Last edited by terka27 at 17-Feb-2005 04:04

Last edited by terka27 at 17-Feb-2005 04:05

That definitely looks like ich and it looks like some are starting to infect, which is common.

I highly recommend getting Pimafix and Melafix and dosing both together. They are compatible. If it works to prevent and kill a low level infection it will save you having to dose a bio-filter, killing antibiotic. Those two botanicals will not harm the biofilter.

Double check ammonia without assumptions - one can be up without the other.

Ich can be brought on easiest by chilling, aside from new fish coming into the tank with it. Water changes can be a source if incoming water suddenly drops as little as 3 degrees. Fish don't self regulate their body temps and such a sudden drop creates temp shock and causes a decline in immunity.

Copper should never be mixed with ANY other med and it happens to be so stable in your tank that the carbon likely will not remove it (but remove carbon anyway). It will need to be changed over time with water changes. You can stay the course with the coppersafe for now since you started with it, but it WILL NOT cure the spots on the fish. Those spots will fall off with time, depending on temp and when they fall to the bottom of the tank, they will develop into many more like themselves, hatching and looking for a new host. It is at THIS free-swimming stage that medication in the water kills them. The coppersafe just might not have made it into the water fast enough to prevent more spots from appearing.

Here is more on the Ich Life Cycle:

[link=http://www.aquatic-hobbyist.com/profiles/disease/freshwater/ich.html]http://www.aquatic-hobbyist.com/profiles/disease/freshwater/ich.html" style="COLOR: #C000C0[/link]

If you continue to see more spots appearing in the coming days, then the coppersafe is not working. At that point, you could do a series of water changes some 8-12 hours apart of 30% (maintaining tank temp within 1-1.5F) to change out much of the copper. I would recommend 3-4 minimum. Then switch to a product such as Rid Ich Plus.

Any of these procucts can be hard on scaleless fish. Watch them carefully and do water changes if you see them stressing (breathing rapidly for long periods, darting excessively, etc.).

Are you getting an increased number of little white dots the same size, or are some of the dots growing and starting to look like cauliflower lumps?

If the latter sign appears, then what you have is Lymphocystis. Which is a viral disease. The bad news is, you can't cure it. At least, not unless you happen to be a lab researcher with access to antivirals. The good news is that a Lymphocystis infection frequently disappears after time, as the fish's immune system knocks the viruses on the head. I can dig up an old TFH article that covers this disease if you want.

If you're getting increased numbers of small salt-grain spots, then it's Ich. Which can be banished using standard meds. However, remember to continue the medication for at least 72 hours after the disappearance of the last white spot. Because if you don't what happens is this. The white spots fall off after they've matured, and spawn thousands of free-swimming larvae called tomites. This is the stage where the meds kill the organisms. If you stop the meds when the white spots have vanished, it's a time bomb ticking away ... 72 hours later, you have swarms of tomites, which then reinfect your fish, and you're back to square one. Continue medicating for a minimum of 72 hours after the spots have gone, however, and the meds are present and waiting to kill the tomites when they emerege. Result: mass death of Ich tomites, end of infective cycle.

Usually, the meds contain instructions to continue dosing for up to 7 days after the end of the white spots, just to make sure you kill all the tomites. Follow said instructions and any Ich you have should be terminated good and proper.

Last edited by Calilasseia at 19-Feb-2005 00:10

Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

thanks for all of your help.
the ich did disappear, but the rainbow still has an infection. after 3 days of doing water changes for the coppersafe, today was the first day we could add in melafix and pimafix. i really do hope that it is able to help.
the treatment will be for the 7 days and i'll let you know if it helped .
we did buy something to get rid of ich though in case it reappears, is it safe to use with the above 2 medications?
it's called nox-ich. we weren't able to find the brands that were mentioned.

Don't mix Nox-Ich with Coppersafe having been in the water recently. The activated carbon does not really pull that much copper out of the water. It is too stable and needs to be done through your water changes. Mixing certain ingredients can be deadly when it comes to ich meds. Either do the copper route, or the formalin/malachite route, but not both together. Assume the copper could be in there for weeks with regular water changes. I have a tester and confirmed this after using just a half dose.

Really, if you read what I stated above about the ich life cycle and the related link, you will see that you are not done because the spots are no longer on the fish. You are at the beginning of a new phase. Soon many will hatch and will be looking for a host. This is when meds must be in the water. You can dose the Pimafix and Coppersafe together. The Pimafix is simply a botanical. There should be an antiseptic when ich or other parasites are present because body fungus almost always follows. Prevention is easier than curing.

If you have not done any larger water changes, the copper is probably still present. If you've done a 25% water change, then approximate how much copper was eliminated and add it back.

i thought that you had stated that i had to try to remove the coppersafe before adding the melafix and the pimafix. eek.
i did 3 water changes for that reason over 3 days. 30%-40% each time.
so right now, there is hardly any coppersafe in there and it's day 2 of the melafix and pimafix.
i did read over the ich cycle. the coppersafe had been in the water before than for probably more than a week.
i looked at the rainbow closely again today and the white tufts that were there seem to be his scales that are infected.
overnight a black skirt tetra died. i found him just a few minutes ago. this makes NO sense as he was completely fine just yesterday. there was no obvious signs of anything wrong with him.
i just thought ich spread faster and onto all the other fish. it has been a little over a week since the spots appeared on the rainbow and there has been no other fish affected. the rainbow hasn't had the spots for a little bit now. i've seen ich in petstores and it never covered very much of him. i am closely looking at the fish daily to see if more spots appear.
i guess i will have to go buy more coppersafe then!. i'm a little confused as to why you say that coppersafe will not work to cure the ich?

I'm saying that IF you have coppersafe in the water and then more spots conintinue to appear, then I would consider it ineffective. After the last spot disappears on any one fish you have a time period of roughly a few days, up to a week (depends on temp), when you could see more spots appear. So, in the week AFTER the last spot falls off, it is most critical to have ich med in the water.

As far as mixing the Pimafix/Melafix with Coppersafe, it is amazing on what one manufacturer will allow you to mix within their own products. Yet, if you go to mix it with anything else made by another company, they don't want you to do that. I have mixed Coppersafe and Pimafix without incident. The Pimafix is a botanical. Cooking with Garlic won't affect your antibiotic

Ich can strike in the gills only of some fish. From what I understand some fish, who have previously had ich, can be immune to an extent, but can get it in their gills. Any fish can get ich in the gills and it is deadliest there. A fish can die with no other apparent signs of illness. However, I would expect such a fish to be respirating heavily.

thanks for your help .
do you think the pimafix will help with the rainbows scales?. if not, is there anything more i can do?.
the thing that is very odd is that right after i added the medication, one of the black skirts was breathing really rapidly but then it got better. this was not the one that died though, so if anyone was going to die i thought it'd be him!. i just really hope there is no more fish deaths. i am just so discouraged by the whole thing.

If the scales seem outlined in white an even a little raised locally where this is at, then he definitely has a columnaris infection. If you do not see it improving, or if it begins to get worse while using Pimafix, then I suggest moving to something more drastic, like Fungus Clear Tank Buddies. This contains nitrofurans which are closer to antibiotics. They are well absorbed into the bloodstream. Read instructions as to whether they state you should do it at half strength for scaleless or sensitive fish, as some tetras are. Dosing a 55 can be expensive too.

If he is the only fish with it, then you could quarantine by using a rubbermaid bin, a bubbler and as much of his own tank water as you can spare without depleting 30% of the original tank of its water. The new bin should be about 10 gallons give or take a few. A fake plant will make him secure. By using his own tank water to transfer him, there is far less transfer stress and temp stress. Fill the main tank and bin with same temp water for what remains. Using a lid and keeping this bin in the warmest possible room will keep him well. A submersible 25w heater can be used if you have some kind of glass plate to attach it to resting on the bottom of the bin. Otherwise, wrap the bin in a blanket to keep it from losing heat too quickly. A slow drop is ok and if it is only a few degrees cooler in your house, he should do alright. But if its down into the mid-60's, he'll need a heater.

Hope this helps.


Last edited by Cory_Di at 23-Feb-2005 16:20

ya, it sounds like that is what he has .
is that stuff ok to use with pimafix and melafix??

Shouldn't be a problem. I'd probably cut back to just one tho - maybe Pimafix.

unsure if anyone else recommended this, but i have had good results in a small tank(bout 60 litres) with a proper treatment of a common white spot remedy solution...