Sick Fish white spots?

[Jim Miller]

I have one of my Espei rasbora with a large white spot in front of his tail fin. Ich?

Looking at the others I find one which seems to be missing dorsal and caudal fins.

I'm now raising the tank to 80f from its normal 74.5.

Any suggestions as to what it might be and treatment strategies?

jim

[Jim Miller]

Mistake. Fin on belly opposite the dorsal fin is missing. Not caudal fin.

[JLW]

Hey Jim,

Typically, ich manifests itself by small, salt-like spots on the fish, and numerous ones. One or two dots are not likely to be ich. If the fish looks like it had salt sprinkled on it, it is probably ich. Ich can lead to some nasty secondary infections, which can cause loss of fins, but without that obvious first sign, I would suspect you have something else going on.

When you see fish losing fins and such, assuming they are not being nipped at, the most likely cause is a water quality issue leading to stress and infection. What are your pH, nitrate, nitrite, ammonia levels?

[Jim Miller]

I changed water on Friday but doing another now. I'll test after that. I haven't been dosing fertz at all for a couple of months and plants are healthy so I don't think anything is chemically out of whack but I'll check for sure. All fish are swimming normally and having fun schooling. No nippy fish only a couple of grumpy amanos.

[Jim Miller]

Water test benign as expected. pH 6.5, zero ammonia, zero nitrates and zero nitrites. Once I get the fish happy again I'll start dosing fertz.

The one that I though was missing fins is actually fine. It was just swimming fast with them tucked in although that one isn't as colored as the others so perhaps it isn't fine.

I'm going to change water every day for a week and see what happens. I also have the temp at 80F just in case it is a parasite in hopes of screwing with its life cycle.

jim