Ich or no ich???

[abbynedwards1]

Hey all, we’ve had this blue hippo for 3 weeks and the tank for 5 weeks. Everything has been going good and then out of no where yesterday he showed some of these white dots on his back. He’s eating well and is active still. But we are trying to decide if it’s ich and need to quarantine.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

abbynedwards1 Welcome to the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Forum!

The #fishmedic team and other knowledgeable members of our community will do our best to help you resolve your questions. Please provide as much of the following as you are able:

• Brief description of the issue you are observing and answers to the following questions:
  • How long have you had the fish with the condition?
  • Did you quarantine with medication when you first acquired the fish? (If Yes, which medication?)
• Current water quality measurements
• Clear photos of the issue taken using WHITE light and/or a short video of any behaviors (post in your response or on YouTube).

If you can help us by providing as much of the above info as possible, it will make diagnosing and providing recommendations for treatment MUCH easier! The Fish Medic team will get back to you as quickly as possible. In the meantime, other members of our community may also share their experience with similar situations and advice that they may have regarding your situation.

You may also feel free to provide a more detailed description of the condition if you wish to share more info than the above list.

Additionally, these links may be useful while you await a response:

• CURRENT QT PROTOCOL LINK
• HOW TO ASK FOR DISEASE DIAGNOSIS HELP LINK

 

[vetteguy53081]

Hey all, we’ve had this blue hippo for 3 weeks and the tank for 5 weeks. Everything has been going good and then out of no where yesterday he showed some of these white dots on his back. He’s eating well and is active still. But we are trying to decide if it’s ich and need to quarantine.

These pics are extremely dark making it impossible to make an assessment. Please repost under white intensity only

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

For some reason, your photos are not showing up, can you please repost them?

 

[abbynedwards1]

Sorry about that, I’ll try again…

I should note we did a water test and all our levels came back normal.

 

[abbynedwards1]

Spots have not changed in size or number for two days now.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

looks like it might be ich

 

[Sleeping Giant]

welcome to R2R

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Sorry about that, I’ll try again…

I should note we did a water test and all our levels came back normal.

Those spots are too large to be ich. Sometimes, ich will cause a localized skin reaction that makes the spot become larger, but these spots look to large to be that.

So, what are they? Tough to say. Flukes typically don't cause noticeable spots. Minor injuries, sometimes with secondary bacterial infections can cause spots like this, but you don't want to rush into treatments (because most treatments have side effects).

At this point, I'd say watch the spots for a few days and if you don't see any new ones develop, just keep watching them. If the fish shows more spots, or other symptoms (rapid breathing, not eating well or scratching) then you may need to go the treatment route. In that case, your differential diagnosis would be bacterial infection or possibly flukes.

Jay

 

[abbynedwards1]

looks like it might be

Those spots are too large to be ich. Sometimes, ich will cause a localized skin reaction that makes the spot become larger, but these spots look to large to be that.

So, what are they? Tough to say. Flukes typically don't cause noticeable spots. Minor injuries, sometimes with secondary bacterial infections can cause spots like this, but you don't want to rush into treatments (because most treatments have side effects).

At this point, I'd say watch the spots for a few days and if you don't see any new ones develop, just keep watching them. If the fish shows more spots, or other symptoms (rapid breathing, not eating well or scratching) then you may need to go the treatment route. In that case, your differential diagnosis would be bacterial infection or possibly flukes.

Jay

Thank you for the reply. That all sounds good and makes sense. We will keep an eye on it.

 

[abbynedwards1]

Back a few weeks later… the original spots disappeared for some time and now today we woke up to find new ones. Very similar in size but just checking to see if you think this is still ‘just watch them’ or if you think I need to take any action. Thanks again for helping out this tank newbie.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Back a few weeks later… the original spots disappeared for some time and now today we woke up to find new ones. Very similar in size but just checking to see if you think this is still ‘just watch them’ or if you think I need to take any action. Thanks again for helping out this tank newbie.

I can only see some large, diffuse white areas on the left side of the fish. That isn't ich, more likely an injury of some sort. Can you see pinhead white spots? I can't see them in the video, but if you can see those in person, it could be ich.

 

[abbynedwards1]

I can only see some large, diffuse white areas on the left side of the fish. That isn't ich, more likely an injury of some sort. Can you see pinhead white spots? I can't see them in the video, but if you can see those in person, it could be ich.

No, there’s only the larger spots near the tail. No pinhead sized ones. I’m assuming it’s just an injury as he’s still acting normal and eating great. He just seems to be prone to these big white spots and I didn’t know if that was ‘normal.’ I know he likes to cram his way into rock crevices for sleeping so maybe that’s it. Anyway, just wanted to make sure I don’t need to take any action.