I'm fairly new to fish keeping, I have a smallmouth bass that's maybe 6 or 7 inches. Recently he has been acting weird. He will line himself up against the drift wood pressing his gill against it then take off rubbing his side/gill area against the wood. He does this pretty hard. At first he didn't do it often at all but in the past few days he had been doing it more and more and he seems stressed. He is still eating well but his appetite is not as much as it was just a week ago.
He does have a very small white spot, its been there a while and I was thinking it was just a scale that came off but its not healing up very fast at all. I also noticed about a week ago he had several white spots on his stomach, they were there about a day and have faded and are now a grey that's hard to tell apart from the rest of his stomach.
Two days ago I put some aquarium salt in the tank, whatever the directions were, I believe it was one tablespoon per five gallons. He seemed to be doing better yesterday but was still rubbing on the wood. He also has got some of his energy back.
My water quality is good in the tests I have done. Ammonia and Nitrites are 0. Nitrates are stay between 40 and 60 ppm. It comes out of the tap at 40ppm. I do weekly water changes of about 30% ph stays at 7.5. My only concern about my water quality I have is I have a very high GH but 0 KH, unfortunately that's how it comes from the tap. I ordered a kh buffer that should help, it gets here tomorrow. From what I have read bass like fairly hard water and are okay with ph's from 6.5 - 8.5 but the documentation I found on that was fairly old.
I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to what it might be. I have done a bit of research and I think its ich or gill flukes but am not sure. I was hoping someone with more experience may have some input.
He does have a very small white spot, its been there a while and I was thinking it was just a scale that came off but its not healing up very fast at all. I also noticed about a week ago he had several white spots on his stomach, they were there about a day and have faded and are now a grey that's hard to tell apart from the rest of his stomach.
Two days ago I put some aquarium salt in the tank, whatever the directions were, I believe it was one tablespoon per five gallons. He seemed to be doing better yesterday but was still rubbing on the wood. He also has got some of his energy back.
My water quality is good in the tests I have done. Ammonia and Nitrites are 0. Nitrates are stay between 40 and 60 ppm. It comes out of the tap at 40ppm. I do weekly water changes of about 30% ph stays at 7.5. My only concern about my water quality I have is I have a very high GH but 0 KH, unfortunately that's how it comes from the tap. I ordered a kh buffer that should help, it gets here tomorrow. From what I have read bass like fairly hard water and are okay with ph's from 6.5 - 8.5 but the documentation I found on that was fairly old.
I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions as to what it might be. I have done a bit of research and I think its ich or gill flukes but am not sure. I was hoping someone with more experience may have some input.
