Is It Ich?

[teddscau]

Okay, so we've had our pyjama cardinalfish for five or six weeks now, and I put them in our display tank last week. Anyways, a few days ago I noticed an opaque (one might even say "white") spot on the runt's tail fin and one on his/her dorsal fin. However, it doesn't look like the ich I've seen on fish in pet stores. I've never had a case of freshwater ich before (I know, different protozoa), and I've kept fish for over a decade. And I've seen marine ich in person as well as in photos, but I think the spots on my guy look different from your typical ich.

The thing is, I've had these fish for over a month now, and not once have I seen them scratching, gasping, or hanging out near the surface. Their colouration seems normal, they aren't producing any excess mucus, they're alert, their eyes are clear, they've been eating disgusting amounts of food (they hardly ate anything the first couple of weeks because I think they might've been wildcaught, so I had to string the food up and wiggle it around like it was alive)... Like, if it were marine ich, I should've noticed symptoms before now, right? Plus, the one spot looks more oblong than round.

I quarantined the four of them together in a bare (save for the spongefilter and artificial cave) 10g. Like, it would've been quite stressful, so they should've been extremely susceptible to any pathogens they may have been carrying, right?

I can't find any good pictures of marine ich online. They're all taken at a distance, are blurry, or both.

 

[Uncle99]

I see no Ick in what you discribed.
You are knowledgeable of the symptoms and these are not being displayed.
Hundreds of Tiny oval spots like fine ground sugar is Ick.

Maybe a fluke?

See if it falls off

 

[teddscau]

Hmm, but maybe I'm just refusing to accept that the spots look like ich? But realistically, I'd be seeing more than two spots by now, yes?

It's hard to separate the myths from facts. My brain's telling me that if, at any point, any of my fish arrived at my house with ich, I should have seen at least one tiny nodule, scratching (even if it's only once in a blue moon), or laboured breathing, yes? But then I read that it's possible for fish to magically develop ich four months after the most recent fish was added? I assume in all those "dormant" ich cases, people just didn't notice any symptoms (despite the symptoms, even mild, being there) until their fish were badly infected.

Anyways, my fish don't look like they're covered in powder sugar or anything like that. Or is that only in the really bad cases?

If anything, it should be my big pyjama that contracted it, since he didn't eat until Week 3. He was so emaciated. Turns out he only eats "heads" (krill heads, mysis heads, shrimp heads) and Hikari omega-enriched brine shrimp. The little guy has been getting bullied lately, though, and doesn't eat as well as he could.

Yeah, and that one bump the runt has... It's sticking out from him/her, rather than just sitting there like a tiny granule. Hopefully it's something dumb like a fluke or a tiny abrasion that got a mild bacterial infection.

I had to deal with brown jelly disease last week, so I don't need anymore stress. I think the new snails we got brought in the brown jelly disease. Caught it in time, though, so we only lost a hammer. @#$%! How long did I quarantine the new snails before putting them in the display? Okay, so I got them on the 18th. Might've put them in the display tank around December 30...no 31. So that's at least thirteen days in quarantine. Hmm, realistically, would an ich cyst survive 13 days on a snail? The invertebrates I bought were kept on the left side of the store, whereas the fish were at the centre... Wait, there were fish on the invertebrate side as well! I saw frogfish there >_<. I think I noticed the spots on the pyjama either Wednesday or Thursday... Well, fudge, if they can carry brown jelly pathogens for thirteen days, then they can freaking carry ich for that long! I didn't want to add the snails to the display yet, but my dad was getting all worked up about them having nothing to eat (there was algae in the tank we were keeping them in, so I'm not sure how he expected them to starve).

Hahh...I didn't see any marine fish with ich at the store, and considering how sucky the store was, the fish (at the store, not my fish) should've been more than stressed enough to be showing symptoms. But it's possible that one of the fish at the store had a very mild infection, and then, in theory, a net could've been used in said tank (or someone's hand could've gone in it), then the itty bitty amount of tank water clinging to said surface could've been transferred to the snails or emerald crab tank, then, in theory, a parasite could've landed on one of the inverts I got OR it could've been scooped up into the bag of water, then, while acclimating the inverts, despite me dumping out over 75% of the acclimation water twice, it could've managed to cling to the inverts, even when I placed them in quarantine by removing them from the bucket with my fingers... Then, as I said before, after thirteen days in my fish-less quarantine tank, free-swimming ich were released into my display tank when my dad added them (he says he THINKS he put them in by picking them up with his fingers...), then the pyjama developed ich only two or three days after being exposed to a presumably very low concentration of the free-swimming parasites... Hmm, and the display tank's a 75g... How good is ich at locating a host?

Hmm, somebody needs to run the numbers on that. I imagine it would be more likely for me to be struck by lightning while being mauled by a shark than for them to have contracted ich from the snails I bought.

 

[HumbleFish]

Do the opaque spots move or remain stationary on the fish?

 

[teddscau]

They stay in the same spot. The bumps look more soft than hard. I would take a picture, but the pyjamas get creeped out and swim off if I stare at them for more than two Mississippis. Don't know if he'd stay in one spot long enough for me to take a photo. I need to get a deer blind or something >_>.

 

[HumbleFish]

They stay in the same spot. The bumps look more soft than hard. I would take a picture, but the pyjamas get creeped out and swim off if I stare at them for more than two Mississippis. Don't know if he'd stay in one spot long enough for me to take a photo. I need to get a deer blind or something >_>.

Sounds like Lymphocystis: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa181

 

[teddscau]

Hmm, never heard of Lymphocystis before. Thanks for the info! Definitely seems more likely that it's Lymphocystis than ich. It isn't wart-like yet, but we'll just have to wait to see what it turns into. Yeah, definitely makes sense. The only symptoms of this disease is that the fish has unsightly lumps on its body. There's a fish vet here in town, so if things get really lumpy, I can just have him knock out the fish and cut the lumps off.

 

[HumbleFish]

Hmm, never heard of Lymphocystis before. Thanks for the info! Definitely seems more likely that it's Lymphocystis than ich. It isn't wart-like yet, but we'll just have to wait to see what it turns into. Yeah, definitely makes sense. The only symptoms of this disease is that the fish has unsightly lumps on its body. There's a fish vet here in town, so if things get really lumpy, I can just have him knock out the fish and cut the lumps off.

Lympho usually clears on its own. Food soaking vitamins and maintaining good water quality will usually help send the virus into remission. I wouldn't cut the nodules off unless they start growing over the gills (preventing breathing) or mouth (obstructing eating).

 

[teddscau]

Dang, two of the other pyjamas have lumps now, too. Well, considering the lump on the dorsal fin of patient zero has started growing out the other side of the fin as well...well, it's probably not ich. I don't think. Praying it's not ich. Please be fish warts.