Potential white spot

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Si2187

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Hi all and thanks in advance. My tank is around 2 months old and I recently brought 4 rams 2 electric blue and 2 german. Unfortunately over the last couple of days the 2 electric blues have both died and the 2germans have both devoloped whiteish marks on there's fins and one has a mark on its lip. I have added them best pics I could take for some advice.
All my tetras/plec that I started my tank with are comepletly fine. I have done about a 30%water change but I wasn't sure if the marks on the fins is whitespot or not as it's more of a smudge individual spots any advice would be appreciated.
 

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Doesn’t look like Ich to me looks like a large white mark rather than smaller individual dots , I’m not sure , somebody with more knowledge will be along soon to help , @Colin_T
 
The spots are not ich - that looks as though the fish has been sprinkled with salt. Someone else might know what the spots are.


Can you tell us a bit more about your tank, please.
Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels
Hardness and pH of the water (if you don't know your hardness, look on your water company's website)
Temperature of the water
Size of tank - volume and dimensions
Other tank mates (which species of tetra and plecs)
Anything added to the tank besides water conditioner
 
The spots are not ich - that looks as though the fish has been sprinkled with salt. Someone else might know what the spots are.


Can you tell us a bit more about your tank, please.
Ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels
Hardness and pH of the water (if you don't know your hardness, look on your water company's website)
Temperature of the water
Size of tank - volume and dimensions
Other tank mates (which species of tetra and plecs)
Anything added to the tank besides water conditioner
Hi so from my test strips I have, pH is around 7, Kh mg/l 75, GH mg/l 150ish, nitrate mg/l 10 and nitrite 0.
The tank is 150l and has been set up for around 2 and a half months. The temperature is 27. I have quite a few plants java fern, anubias, amazon sword, java moss and one other I forget the name. The only thing other than tap safe is liquid fertisler.
I currently have the 2 rams pictured, 6 rumynose tetra, 3 plecs I'm not sure on exact breed and a yoyo loacall are quite small around 2inches max.
 
The GH is slightly higher than I would like for rams but it should not have caused the two deaths or the white marks. Everything else, including the temperature, is fine. Strips don't include ammonia but with zero nitrite after two and a half months it should be zero.
The one thing that does jump out at me is the loach. Loaches need to be kept in groups, and Seriously Fish does comment that if kept alone they can be aggressive towards other fish, though usually fish that are the same shape as the loaches. The loach may or may not be the cause of the marks :huh:
 
The fish are covered in excess mucous (white film over their body). This is usually caused by poor water quality, something in the water irritating the fish, or external protozoans.

I can't tell what the white lumps on the fins are but it's not white spot, but is probably related to the excess mucous.

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How long have you had them for?

I would clean the tank and add salt. If there's no improvement after 3 or 4 days of salt, add a broad spectrum medication that treats external protozoan, fungal and bacterial infections.

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Wipe the inside of the glass down with a clean fish sponge.

Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. The water changes and gravel cleaning will reduce the number of disease organisms in the water and provide a cleaner environment for the fish to recover in. It also removes a lot of the gunk and this means any medication can work on treating the fish instead of being wasted killing the pathogens in the gunk.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it is added to the tank.

Clean the filter if it hasn't been done in the last 2 weeks. However, if the filter is less than 6 weeks old, do not clean it. Wash the filter materials/ media in a bucket of tank water and re-use them. Tip the bucket of dirty water on the garden/ lawn. Cleaning the filter means less gunk and cleaner water with fewer pathogens.

Increase surface turbulence/ aeration to maximise the oxygen levels in the water.

Add some salt, (see directions below).

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You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt) or swimming pool salt to the aquarium at the dose rate of 1 heaped tablespoon per 20 litres of water. If there is no improvement after 48 hours you can double that dose rate so there is 2 heaped tablespoons of salt per 20 litres.

Keep the salt level like this for at least 2 weeks but no longer than 4 weeks otherwise kidney damage can occur. Kidney damage is more likely to occur in fish from soft water (tetras, Corydoras, angelfish, Bettas & gouramis, loaches) that are exposed to high levels of salt for an extended period of time, and is not an issue with livebearers, rainbowfish or other salt tolerant species.

The salt will not affect the beneficial filter bacteria, fish, plants, shrimp or snails.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week using only fresh water that has been dechlorinated. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that. This dilutes the salt out of the tank slowly so it doesn't harm the fish.

If you do water changes while using salt, you need to treat the new water with salt before adding it to the tank. This will keep the salt level stable in the tank and minimise stress on the fish.
 
Thank you very much for the info I have just cleaned the tank and done the water change just waiting for my salt to be delivered.
 

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