Is this ich or lymph?
- Thread starter uhupong
- Start date
I'm betting lymphocystis, because of the opacity, irregular shape and lack of sheen of the bumps. Isolate the fish in qt, and just keep the water immaculate and feed it well. If it increases, and looks like grains of salt, read the stickies in this forum that have to with diagnosis and treatment, and treat for ich. Lymphocystis has no treatment except water quality and good feeding. It's a viral disease and unfortunately can spread. Once the fish gets over it, it's probably immune from then on.
I'm going to have to differ from Sk8r. Lymph typically will not disappear and reappear like that. Doesn't tend to be as wide spread either. I'd suspect Crypt and would advise treating in a QT with either hyposalinity or copper.
I'd be interested in the back label on that bottle. I'm suspecting tea tree oil...if they confess what's in it.
A google search turned up the completely silly statement that it 'contains no chemicals,' which is impossible: everything in the universe is chemicals, including natural substances. The question is, which chemicals does it contain? It may simply increase slime coat, which would help the fish with either ich OR lympho, so we're still stuck with not knowing what we're dealing with here...
A lot of fish-vet stuff is like that: you treat for symptoms and try to alleviate symptoms. IF it turns out to be lympho, it will be nice if it can treat the symptoms, and even nicer if it doesn't adversely affect the tank (tea tree oil is pretty benign) and make the problem worse. And, being lympho, it will go away quietly and the med will have a little credit for at least making the fish more comfy.
The one thing that gives me a bad and creepy vibe about this stuff is that they claim its for 'ich', which is not a disease, but an animal, a parasite, that I'd rather kill than cure, thank you. Nothing we know of is going to kill ich without killing off your bacteria, and it says it won't do that.
If it is ich, a miracle-in-a-bottle is not going to stop the parasite from coming back. But.....let's hope it's going to help the fish feel better, eat, develop slime coat and stand a better chance of surviving another assault by a parasite---or just generally get better if it's lympho. The med is interesting stuff, and I'm sincerely extremely glad the fish is doing better. If you get information on the contents or composition of that med, I'd sure like to post it. They're not admitting anything on the internet, so that says to me it's a known ingredient, and it may not confess it on the back label, either.
A google search turned up the completely silly statement that it 'contains no chemicals,' which is impossible: everything in the universe is chemicals, including natural substances. The question is, which chemicals does it contain? It may simply increase slime coat, which would help the fish with either ich OR lympho, so we're still stuck with not knowing what we're dealing with here...
A lot of fish-vet stuff is like that: you treat for symptoms and try to alleviate symptoms. IF it turns out to be lympho, it will be nice if it can treat the symptoms, and even nicer if it doesn't adversely affect the tank (tea tree oil is pretty benign) and make the problem worse. And, being lympho, it will go away quietly and the med will have a little credit for at least making the fish more comfy.
The one thing that gives me a bad and creepy vibe about this stuff is that they claim its for 'ich', which is not a disease, but an animal, a parasite, that I'd rather kill than cure, thank you. Nothing we know of is going to kill ich without killing off your bacteria, and it says it won't do that.
If it is ich, a miracle-in-a-bottle is not going to stop the parasite from coming back. But.....let's hope it's going to help the fish feel better, eat, develop slime coat and stand a better chance of surviving another assault by a parasite---or just generally get better if it's lympho. The med is interesting stuff, and I'm sincerely extremely glad the fish is doing better. If you get information on the contents or composition of that med, I'd sure like to post it. They're not admitting anything on the internet, so that says to me it's a known ingredient, and it may not confess it on the back label, either.
Last edited:
uhupong
New member
I will keep you guys updated. This product was recommended by our lfs. My wife (MD) suspect s the product as well, she think it is either antibiotic (coz it say to treat the tank for 5 days)or it is nothing at all, sort of like a snake oil.
We shall see.
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We shall see.
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My vote is snake oil. But ask your LFS to guarantee it and if it does not work, money back guarantee. Want to bet which way that goes???
:hmm3:
I vote snake oil as well. When I had a shop I tested everything that came out- for freshwater it was easy to do because I kept 170 tanks on individual filter systems, so I could regulate water chemistry for each fishes required needs. Marine I had a backroom QT that had 20 tanks with individual filters as well. When the "holistic" stuff came out- the tea tree in particular- I tested it pretty extensivly. My determination was that it is kind of like ben gay in a way. I think all it really does is irritate the fish slightly, causing it to slime heavier- and have a mild anesthetic at the same time to calm the fish down. As far as ich removal in freshwater-stress coat had the same effectivness. Marine- no noticable diffrences. Now I know enough about science to understand the lack of controls of this little study, but in all the things I tested it came back copper,formalin,the known antibiotics,the 2 dyes,that worked and not much else OTC had a effect on any illness. I did this with new products for about 7 years or so.
steelhead77
New member
Why do some people diagnose every single white spot as ich? IME those spots do NOT look like any ich I have ever seen. To me that looks very much like Lymphocystis. From the photos, those spots look fluffy and irregular. Not like grains of salt.
Some of us base our recommendations based on having seen thousands of cases of those issues
uhupong,
Garlic seems to have some positive effect in light cases of ich, based on anecdotal reports and some trials I've run. I've found it rather infective in advanced cases.
Exactly. lymphocystis will go away on its own. Cryptocaryon will not.
