Black ich? (Diplopstomiasis)

[Cannedfish]

Has anybody experienced this on their rays? I noticed the sudden appearance of little dark specks on my lighter, female marble motoro. I cannot be sure if it is affecting my darker, smaller, male motoro because he is darker in colour. I only notice this on the rays, not the other fish in the tank.

A quick search online led me to it possibly being diplopstomiasis, the larval stage of digenetic fluke parasites. I don't want to add any chemical treatments until I am fairly certain of what this is. Or if what I am seeing is even harmful to the rays. So far, there has been no change of activity wit the rays or any of the other fish in the tank. Everybody is active and eating.

No new fish, food, or chemicals have been introduced to the tank for 3.5 months. Temperature is 76 deg F, 185g tank, bare bottom, 50% waterchange weekly with Prime water conditioner, filtered by Eheim 2080 & JBJ 13W Submariner UV (on 24/7 since August 2010, cleaned every 3 weeks). Food consists strictly of pellets (Tetra Colorbits, Ken's high protein pellets & spirulina tabs, NLS Thera+A pellets once every 10 days, & Hikari floating Cichlid Gold). All equipment used for this tank is dedicated to this tank only.

It has only been a couple of days since the most recent waterchange and I noticed some squiggly trails through the condensation above the waterline in the morning after. I thought it was just some harmless surface insects, like water fleas, but it was also the first time I have noticed those things, so I thought they may be related to what I now see on the rays.

Here are some pics:
Female (lighter one) = 8 inch wide, Male (darker one) = 6 3/4 inch wide

 

[johno27]

Sadly I am no help to you other than bumping this to the top so someone else can see it.

If it where me I wouldn't add any meds or doing anything crazy until I figured out what was going on or noticed any alarming behavior

 

[cheon]

my ray as well have these goose bumps i thought it was just skin texture. until i just ran into this thread

 

[ShadowStryder]

Its not ich, rays don't get ich. As long as they are not moving then from what I can tell its just the texturing of the skin.
Which is all I see. If they are moving then it could be argulus (lice)

 

[johno27]

The only reason I thought it might not be skin texture was the pics of the tail.

Also the skin texture is pretty uniform most of the time these seem to be random and very spaced out

But i could be wrong it happens all the time

 

[Cannedfish]

Thanks for the help so far!

my ray as well have these goose bumps i thought it was just skin texture. until i just ran into this thread

The only reason I thought it might not be skin texture was the pics of the tail.

Also the skin texture is pretty uniform most of the time these seem to be random and very spaced out

But i could be wrong it happens all the time

Ah, I know what you guys mean about the skin texture, the "goose bumps". What I was referring to were the sand like specks that are visible around the base of the left eye in the pics. If you look closely, there are some over the rest of the topside of the disc. But mostly around the anus region where it is more apparent with the white tone of the underside. I haven't been able to snap a pic of that. You can see a few specks on the white region of the tail in the picture.

Its not ich, rays don't get ich. As long as they are not moving then from what I can tell its just the texturing of the skin.
Which is all I see. If they are moving then it could be argulus (lice)

I haven't seen the specks move yet. But they're not on the same places today. Not much under the eye, still some under the mouth, and the anus region.

I think it might actually be little food or poops bits sticking to their slime. Hence, the concentration around the anus. I have upped the ratio of the Ken's fish food pellets lately.

What do you guys think?

 

[johno27]

If you wanted to try something to see if it is debree stuck to the slime coat. You could try using a turkey baster to gently "wash them off" with a jet of water.

Like I said before I wouldn't stress them unless you know they are in immediate danger but I don't think the baster would bother them too much