White fungus on scats

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johnny potatoes

johnny potatoes

Aimara
MFK Member
Mar 27, 2010
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Dewey
I picked these guys up a couple days ago and all four have a fungus on them. Not ich, I've seen that before. Looks like tiny cotton balls. I couldn't access the freshwater disease guide for some reason and couldn't find anything in the stickies. All the other fish are fine, I have since separated these four into there own tank. What is it and what's the best way to treat. Thank you

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New fish should always be quarantined for several weeks before being introduced into the main tank to prevent the spread or introduction of unwanted pathogens. Heving said that could you post your water parameters?
 
Aquanero said:
New fish should always be quarantined for several weeks before being introduced into the main tank to prevent the spread or introduction of unwanted pathogens. Heving said that could you post your water parameters?
Click to expand...

Going by who I got the fish from, I expected they were clean. Live and learn I guess. I can get water params later tonight. And having said that any idea what it could be.

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Looks like Saprolegnia. There are a couple of good meds for this depending on your water parameters including Ph, Dh etc. some will be more effective and work quicker than others. However it is relativly easy to cure if cought early. Salt at 1 tablespoon per 5 gallons of water is an excelent first step.
 
Params as follows,

Temp 84
PH 7.4
Ammonia less than .25
NitrIte 0
NitrAte 40

Thanks for your help

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You could use a combination of Malachite Green & API Triple Sulfa which is IMO the best treatment because it will not only cure the Sap it will also provide protection against any secondary bacterial infection. Another option is API Fungus Cure which will also work (3 mg of Malichite Green and 30 mg of Acriflavin) but I'm not crazy about using Acriflavin if other options are available. Mardel Quick Cure (Malachite Green, Formalin) is a third option.
My concern here is you have an ammonia reading in your tank which indicates it's not fully cycled or the added bio-load has caused a mini cycle. You should do a 50% water change and remove any uneaten food before starting treatment. Do not add meds within the first hour of adding any redox reducer (water conditioner) as it will severly reduce the effectiveness of the MG. You could also treat in a hospital tank but if you do keep the main tank salted to help prevent any other fish for becoming infected. The ammonia is a concern so you have to increas the bio-media or add additional filtration to handel the increased load on the system. Any additional stress on the fish will compromise the immune system and allow this to take hold where it would otherwise not be an issue. Hope this helps.
 
40ppm nitrate is considered to be stress zone for many fish, and the scats may have not brought the spores in with them.
The spores may have been in your tank already, but your other fish may have an immunity, because they have grown accustomed to your water.
The high nitrate levels and moving, could in fact, trigger the new fish enough stress to become infected with already existent opportunistic pathogens.
And then in time overwhelm the immunity of the original fish in the tank.
You do not list salinity in your parameters, and scats are a primarily brackish water fish, and prefer a salinity of at least 3ppt, higher is probably better. As scats age, they are best in almost full salinity sea water.
And bringing the nitrate level to below 20ppn with regular partial water changes, is standard good practice
 
Good points duane. Thanks for chiming in on this.
 
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