Unsure what I'm dealing with.

[Ryleah]

Request Help

Tank size: 45 Gallons
pH: 6.8-7
ammonia: 0 - .25
nitrite: 0 - .25
nitrate: 5.0
kH: My kit and local shop does not test this.
gH: My kit and local shop does not test this
tank temp: 81

Fish Symptoms (include full description including lesion, color, location, fish behavior):
Looks whitish blue. Headish area and tail. See picture below. I believe she is female as she is lacking the tail of Male swords are starting to develop. She is eating. Swimming and acting fairly normal as she did in the fry tank and when she was moved to the 45. She is a kallmani swordtail. She is remaining with her school or the raspbora.

Volume and Frequency of water changes: As tank is cycled I do 25% once a week with water checks twice a week. And time I do plant work it also gets a 25% water change atop of the planned one.

Chemical Additives or Media in your tank: we use fluval clearmax

Tank inhabitants: 2 pearl gourami, 4 harlequin raspbora, 3 orange Venezuelans cory, 2 thai flying fox, 2 blue Japanese double swordtails, 6 serpae long fin tetra and 6 xiphophorus kallmani swordtails.

Recent additions to your tank (living or decoration): Plants were moved from quarantine to main tank earlier this week.

Exposure to chemicals: All chemicals used are seachem brand. Flourish was used earlier this week when the new plants were added. The plants had been treated using the bleach method but had been cleaned and spent over a 2 week period in QT. It was also treated with the suggested amount of prime twice to dealing with such chemicals before being allowed to sit.

Other info: The fry are about 3-4 weeks old. I am fairly new to keeping tanks this size and this was my first aquascape so it's very possible I just messed up. I just dont want her to suffer but dont want to over medicate. I also wonder if it's her "color" coming in as I've never had fry before.
Digital photo (include if possible):

 

[Colin_T]

How long have you had the fish for?
How long has it had the white patches?
Have you added anything new to the tank in the 2 weeks before this started?

Can you post another picture?
Check the pictures on your pc before posting them and find a couple that are in focus and clearly show the problem.

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I would stop using the Fluval Clearmax and just let the filter cycle normally.

I would do bigger water changes, about 75% each week. Gravel clean the substrate when you do a water change. Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

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You need to find out what the GH (general hardness) of your water supply is. This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to another pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Most livebearers come from hard alkaline water and don't do well in soft acid water. If the swordtails are wild caught and come from hard water, they will not do well in soft water.

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Do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate. Then add some salt.

You can add rock salt (often sold as aquarium salt), sea 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.

If you only have livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), goldfish or rainbowfish in the tank you can double that dose rate, so you would add 2 heaped tablespoons per 20 litres and if there is no improvement after 48 hours, then increase it so there is a total of 4 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, 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 but the higher dose rate will affect some plants. The lower dose rate will not affect plants.

After you use salt and the fish have recovered, you do a 10% water change each day for a week. Then do a 20% water change each day for a week. Then you can do bigger water changes after that.

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Baby livebearers don't normally change colour as they grow. If they are born silver they usually stay silver. However, wild caught fish might change colour as they reach sexual maturity.

I do not think the white patches are colour changes due to sexual maturity.

 

[Ryleah]

We have had they fry for over 4 weeks they have been in the 45g for a week. I only noticed her spots today as she came up to feed as the fry tend to stay in the vegetation unless schooling for meal time.

Everything that was added was the plants that were put in before they were.

 

[Colin_T]

Where did the plants come from?

It might have been attacked by the flying fox or another swordtail. Monitor them and make sure none are chasing the young fish.

 

[Ryleah]

Our lfs is where all our plants came from. They were cleaned with the hobby standard and then QT a min of 2 weeks.

I have not seen attacks. The tank is a room I spend most my room in. The flying foxes will chase each other but that is largely in water flow and bubbles. Of course I'm human and sleep so it's very possible.

I will be getting measurements on my missing parameters tomorrow and getting the salt treatment started. And watch the tank more carefully.

 

[Colin_T]

I would just monitor it and see if it gets worse. If it does get worse, add some salt as described in post #2.

How often are you feeding the fish?
Assuming the tank has an established filter, you could try feeding the fish more often (3-5 times per day). Don't put huge amounts of food in the tank, just the normal amount and make sure they eat it all. The extra food might help the fish heal up quicker and it might stop others from picking at it (assuming they are).

 

[Jan Cavalieri]

I'm puzzled about why you're treating it like a disease when it could just be a genetic mutation - it it's eating and behaving normally and not getting attacked on by other fish I guess I wouldn't be worried about it -more excited to find out what she turns out to be. She certainly looks like a fish and certainly looks like it could be a swordfish. I think she looks like one of these: Xiphophorus Kallmani Catemaco Brass Swordtail

This is a gross story, but also about mutations When I worked in a Research lab in a basement we had constant trouble with "waterbugs" ie; Roaches that we really didn't know what to do about that wouldn't harm the 600 or so rats and people in and out all the time - we always had a number of experiments going on that couldn't be interrupted etc. Eventually we just shut it all down for a week. We got a license for Pesticide handling and my idiot professor, very unscientifically poured it into a styrofoam coffee cup - he poured and it went right through the cup, spilling all over the table undiluted and sending us all of us in the room to the campus hospital to be treated for our first incident of lung damage that no mask that we owned would have stopped. Anyway - once we were well and the stuff remixed properly we began our attack. Spraying all over the place. For example, we pulled a bookcase away from a wall and behind it was a squirming wall of roaches shaped just like a bookcase!! Pretty gross but we had no good way of estimating how many roaches we were killing and then we found our first ALBINO COCKROACH. It actually became a great incentive to kill more cockroaches.

Since Internet wasn't really available to all at that point in time, one person went to the library to find out what percentage of the common cockroach was albino. The answer (unfortunately an estimate from a textbook unlikely to be challenged) was 1 out of 9,800,000 will be Albino. That week we found and killed 6 albino roaches before we got rid of all we could locate in any color. So while mutations are rare they aren't that rare.

Now if my dear husband was telling this story he would explain it in terms of your odds of winning the Lottery (he was the KS Lottery IT manager) but unfortunately he is dead. He would say first you have to buy a ticket. This little fish is your ticket. (get him a lottery number)

 

[Colin_T]

This is a gross story, but also about mutations When I worked in a Research lab in a basement …

LOL any story that begins like that is going to be interesting. It's almost the start of a horror movie

The year is 1929 and we were working on mutants in the laboratory, located in the basement of my castle in Transylvania. There came a knocking at the door, knock, knock, knock. My butler Egor, went to see who was there. There was a long drawn out squeak from the rusty door hinges, and as the door opened, Egor saw a 6 foot tall albino cockroach standing there.

 

[AKfish]

Just spot judgement from a couple pics. Looks most like a fungus or slime coat issue. Again just quickly judging but patches like that aren't ick and it isn't open wounds. Looks more like something potentially growing on the fish. So again I would QT and observe. If it gets any bigger at all over a night or two it's not a mutation and I would treat for fungus. All the best.