The light gold and behaviors you mentioned lead me to velvet . Symptoms of velvet include swimming into the flow of a powerhead or wavemaker, and tiny white dots on the fins & body. The white dots can look similar to ich, but are smaller and usually far more numerous.
If the dots are too numerous to count there’s a good chance you are dealing with velvet. [/ICODE]
This should be treated in a quarantine tank using Chloroquine phosphate or Copper. A 5 minute freshwater dip, and 90 minute acriflavine bath (or 45 minute formalin bath) can provide temporary relief before the fish enters quarantine.
Other symptoms for velvet would be:
- Reduced or complete loss of appetite
- Heavy breathing, scratching, flashing, head twitching, erratic swimming behavior (unfortunately velvet shares all these same symptoms with ich & gill flukes.)
- Swimming into the flow of a waterpump/wavemaker/powerhead (unique to velvet)
- Acting reclusive (velvet causes fish to be sensitive to light)
Chloroquine phosphate is the treatment of choice for velvet, but copper also works if symptoms are caught early on. These also work on ich, so if in doubt treating with Chloroquine or copper will have you covered both ways.
I used ruby rally pro when I had an outbreak which I felt was helpful until my medication arrived
