newbie problem

[sairie]

i have a 10 gallon tank that has been set up for about a month. i knew nothing about fish prior to this and just did what the instructions that came with the tank said to do.... wait a few days before putting in the fish. i knew i had extremely high amonia cause my tank was really cloudy and i had it tested(unfortunatey i have no test kit of my own), so for the past week or so i've been doing water changes of about 25% every 2 days.

but... then yesterday i wake up and one of my fish(a mollie) has white spots all over it. it was hiding in a log(which i've never seen it do before) and it's fin on it's back(dorsal?) was not as high as it usually is... he seemed sick. i'm pretty sure it's ICK from looking at pictures, although the stuff that's on my mollie is a bit fuzzy... is that possible with ick? or is it just flat white spots?

so i went to the store yesterday and bought some meds for ick and did a water change and then put it in.... i came home last night and he had more white stuff on his eyes :[

none of my other fish have any spots on them and are acting normal. i have a 10gallon tank and besides from my mollie i have a platy, black skirt and gold skirt tetra. i han't added any new fish for weeks, & i treat the water with a declorinator.

it's always in the log and slugish and generally sick and i feel horrible for it :[ i really should have read more i guess and not trusted the instructions ... but i didn't know.

am i doing the right thing with the medication? i'm skeptical of instructions now, from the info i got from when i got the tank, to the food jar saying i need to feed them 2 times a day... so i just want to make sure. the instructions say to do a 25% water change and then add in the meds, and take out the carbon from the filter. continue doing this everyday until 3 days after the white spots dissapear.

thanks in advance, and sorry i'm so ignorant about this stuff :[

 

[smileandnod]

Ich usually looks like your fish has been salted. Little white grains on it's body.
If it's a bit fuzzy, then that sounds more like some kind of fungal infection. A bit like little tiny blobs of cotton wool?

I've never had to treat that, so someone else will have to advise what to do.

 

[CackD]

First off - that sucks!! Poor fishy! I've never had a fish get ich, but now that I've gotten back into the hobby I'm sure its inevitable. Also - don't be sorry - its part of the process of learning.

I'm not an expert by any means, and I'm sure there are many around here that can give you some great advice - but I'll chime in anyway.

If you have high ammonia levels its only gonna lower the fishes resistance I believe. I would move to daily water changes of 20-25% ( remember to dechlorinate, or they'll have another problem to deal with ).

If you have another spare tank, I'd suggest setting it up post-haste and moving the fish in there...cause there is a good chance the ich might spread.
At this point, though, you probably want to treat the tank anyway. It sounds like the tank is still in the cycling process??

I'd lower the feedings to once per day ( or if you want to feed twice, make the feedings very small - currently, because my tank is in the cycling process, I drop very tiny amounts of food and make sure all of it is eaten...I try not to let anything get to the bottom of the tank. ) Better yet, with high ammonia amounts, you might want to cut it down to every other day.

Lastly, if you can manage it, adding a tiny bit of aquarium salt might also help you in combating the fungus.

Again - I'm no expert - so if I am way off on this please correct me. ( I'm learnin' too. )

 

[sairie]

kinda like cotton wool... but i'm not sure.

the best i can say is that it looks like there's tiny spots of mold growing on it... it sticks up off of the body too a tad bit because when the fish is in profile you can see the fuzz, but very tiny amounts.

i was confused because the pictures i saw of fungus were quite big patches. these are mainly tiny(which do look sort of like salt), with the exception of the kinda fluffy ones and there's what looks like a line of the small fuzzy dots on one of his fins.

and i was just watching him and the platty tried to nip at his mouth twice within a few minutes.

??

i wish there was a way i could tell for sure what's really wrong with the poor thing
:[

 

[Changes-In-Latitude]

If the spots are fuzzy it sounds most likely like flexibacter which is also known as Black Molly Disease. Remove the molly to a hospital tank if possible as flexibacter is contagious to the other fish. Lower the temp to 75 or 76 degrees, this will slow the growth of the flexibacter bacteria. If you can, feed the fish with food medicated with oxytetracycline and treat the water with Maracyn and Maracyn II. Add aeration to the tank if possible.
HTH

 

[sairie]

thanks for your help. unfortunately i havn't been able to get to the store(hopefully will on break from work tomorrow) for the maracyn.

i've been treating my tank with daily water changes with rid ich for 4 days now. the molly has seemed to be pretty stable, not getting worse but not improving. i noticed that my platy has a few spots on his back fin. unfortunately i do not have a hospital tank or the money to go buy one :[

i'm still unsure what the fish actually has... some of it looks like salt and then some of it looks like bigger grains of sorta fluffy salt(heh), especially on the molly's mouth. it looks like it's breating really hard and for some reason it always stays right at the very top of the tank with it's back at the water level (?) and i've already started treating for the ich, what would i do even if i wanted to stop and start with the new meds?

just to be sure, is it ok to treat the fish with rid ich and maracyn I & II? i was reading on a website that someone did that... just a bit confused, don't want to overmedicate the fish. i'm going to also get the food changes_in_latitude was talking about, a thermometer and some test kits because i still don't know what my water paramaters are.

any (more) help would be appreciated, i'm freaking out over here :[