Help - Spots On Fish

I've just got home from work to find the floor of my tank covered in what looks like sprinklings of DUST. 6 of my neons also have small white spots on them and the tiger barbs have a couple of their tail fins!!!! This is further to my posts over the last few days of "clown plec hanging near surface"!!!!

All water levels are fine and i have a 70L tank. I recently added a baby bn at the weekend. All fish seem fine and are eating.

Could this be white spot? I could understand if i didnt have all the sprinklings on the gravel. Or could this be some sort of parasite>?

my neons had the same thing but its gone now 2 little white spots on the tail fins

Could this be algae? i've just done a gravel vac and a 30% water change. I wont bother medicating the tank tonight - will see how they are in the morning.

Any ideas what this can me?

I have managed to get a pic of the mess that is on the gravel, it's not the best - but you can see the blanket of dirt that is covering the bottom of the tank. It is most visible around the small java ferns, and less so at the fron of the tank.

If the fish have small grains of salt on them you are dealing with whitespot.
It can soon kill a fish so need to act fast.
Turn temp up to 30, add whitespot med, but don't forget to remove black carbon.
Increase aeration in the tank as the high temp and med reduce 02 in the water.

ok - thanks for the help. is methylene blue ok for treating white spot?

I would get a whitespot med like interpet whitespot.
Methylene blue some can wipe the beneifcial bacteria out in your filter, plus it can stains things in your tank.
http/www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/ich.shtml

meth blue is not the treatment white spot is all that is needed never use more than stated doses

I woke up this morning and all seems ok in the tank, so i did a quick check on the levels. Ammonia came back at 0ppm, but Nitrite was up at 2ppm!!!!! I only tested this a couple of days ago - so was very shocked to see this. I have only added a baby bn in the last 3 days - so this cannot be the reason for the jump. I have carried out a 60% water change this morning and got the level down to 0.5 ppm, which i know is still too high. I will do another change when i get home from work tonight!

What could be the reason for this nitrite jump? Is my tank mid cycle again? This is a mature tank and has been going for 9 months now with very little trouble

I'm confused as to whether i have fin rot or white spot.

My cardinal tetras are the only ones in my tank that are showing any symptoms. When i put the lights on - it looks like little white spots are glowing on 2 of the tetras ( i have 9 in total), the others are fine. When the lights are off - they all look fine (including my tetras, barbs and gouramis). However the 2 tetras that have the white spots on them also look like their tail fins arent as well pronounced as the rest of the group. Could this be fin rot instead>

How many fish and which type do you have in the 70 litre tank.
How often do you maintain the tank.
Do you use a gravel vac.
If the fish have whitespots the size of grains of salt you are dealing with whitespot.
Finrot is common on top of whitespot.

Wilder said:

How many fish and which type do you have in the 70 litre tank.
How often do you maintain the tank.
Do you use a gravel vac.
If the fish have whitespots the size of grains of salt you are dealing with whitespot.
Finrot is common on top of whitespot.

Click to expand...

I have the following fish in my 70L: 3 tiger barbs, 2 dwarf gouramis, 1 baby bn, 1 baby clown pleco, 3 neon tetras and 6 cardinal tetras. I do a 15% water change every week and do a gravel vac at the same time. The only new addition in the new month has been the baby bn.

Since the last post i decided to med with Anti fin rot as i wasnt convinced that it was white spot. Yesterday evening i checked the water stats an all were fine APART from Ammonia which was up at 1ppm. Now this is strange as the tank is established and has been going for 10 months now. I did a 50% water change (even tho i was medding). This morning i have checked the Ammonia level and this is at 0.5ppm - i havent fed the fish this morning as i dont want to add to the bio load. I have just done another 60% change. I have also had 2 cardinals die - i presume from the high ammonia levels.

I'm wondering whether i should get the 3 tiger barbs out that i have as they look in good shape and move these to my 2nd tank (a 50L that has 6 baby tiger barbs in it) as a temporary measue, and to also reduce the bio load in the main tank. Any thoughts?

OK - have managed to get the ammonia levels to 0 now and have found & removed the 2 dead cardinals. I think these 2 were the ones that had the white spots on them. There is still another tetra with what looks like white spots and poor looking fins and i dont hold out much hope for him. I'm going to let things take there course and not put any med in the tank unless things start to get worse

Tanks slightly overstocked.
Finrot common on top of whitespot.
Good luck.

I finally managed to get a friend who has kept fish for years to look at the cardinal tetras in my tank for me. He was as puzzled as I have been as to what was wrong with them. Although it now looks like white spot or some type of other external parasite. This has now wiped out all 6 of my cardinal tetras in my 70L tank.

All the other fish seem to be ok, apart from my clown plec – which I have posted in another thread already. Have now medicated the tank with Interpet No 6 – White spot treatment. Hopefully this will work and I wont lose anymore fish to this! What has annoyed me more is how this started? It must have been carried into my tank on some of the plants that I bought or my new bristlenose plec!!!

Thanks for all your help on this.