# need help asap. fuzzy black fungus!



## Breann (Jan 26, 2010)

I have 3 danios, 2 small algae eaters, 5 marbled crayfish, and a blue paradise fish (gourami)
a crayfish snipped my paradise fishes tail and now he has the whole tail shape back..only completely fuzzy black fungus.
i dont know how to treat it because i cant figure out what it even is. the tank i got my danios out of had a fish with a similar fungus.. 

i'm going to change the water, clean the filter, clean up the excess food, etc until i figure out what to do.


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## La Reina (Oct 25, 2009)

Hey there, I'm digging around trying to figure this out for you, here's some useful links:

Fungus - Saprolegnia, diagnosis and treatment

Bacterial infections, diagnosis and treatment

I've never heard of black fuzzy stuff, is that Velvet?


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## Breann (Jan 26, 2010)

hi La Reina, i've looked up velvet and velvet seems to be different.
Also, ick seems to be different. so it's pretty confusing.


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## La Reina (Oct 25, 2009)

It's definately not ich, I'm in the process of treating it. Send a pm to Lupin or BettaBaby, whatever this is you'd better catch it. Can you move the healthy fish to another tank or bucket? Meds will be hard on your inverts and algae eaters.


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## Breann (Jan 26, 2010)

okay, so i cleaned the water 80/20
and this morning my 2 small algae eaters died.. my crayfish seem okay and the paradise fishes tail isnt so dark now, its like a thin black line rather than the appearance of being dipped in chocolate (lol, like a visible dark coating) 

on the algae eaters, behind the gils were very pink and they had scratch like marks all over their bodies. 

is this ammonia burn? i've turned off the filter so that my paradise fish can relax (he doesnt like fast moving water and hides from the front of the filter)
maybe the blackness is some type of scabbing? it either got better or maybe he scratched it off...
i'm going to change the water again today.. 50/50 coz crayfish really make the water get nasty quick. and i'm going to get some chlorine removal stuff just incase its chlorine related.. but i figure i dont need to get the ammonia removal because changing the water seems to work just as well.
and i think i'm going to get an antibiotic to quarantine/bathe my paradise fish in.
hopefully nothing else dies. i feel bad enough lol


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## Twistersmom (Dec 9, 2008)

Any chance, you can take some water to the store with you to be tested or buy a testing kit? Ammonia burn can cause black spots to develop on the fish. What size is the tank?
I believe keeping ammonia and nitrites under control will be hard to do without running any type of filter. The filter is where most of the bacteria grows, that is needed to keep a cycled tank and maintain a zero reading for ammonia/nitrite.

Post the test results if you can. Pictures of the ill fish would help.

Good Luck!


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## Breann (Jan 26, 2010)

okay.. i'll have to do that.

so..kind of funny..
when we bought the danios and the algae eaters we asked for 3 of each... when we got home we could only find 2 algae eaters and never once did we see more then 2 algae eaters in the tank... this morning i flushed 2 algae eaters and now the third one popped up dead. haha


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