# ich or fungus??



## molliefan09 (Sep 21, 2009)

1. Size of aquarium (# of gallons) 20 gal
2. Is your aquarium setup freshwater or brackish water?fresh
3. How long the aquarium has been set up?6 weeks
4. What fish and how many are in the aquarium (species are important to know): see my signature
5. Are there live plants in the aquarium? not currently
6. What temperature is the tank water currently?81 f
7. What make/model filter are you using? tetra whisper
8. Are you using a CO2 unit? no
9. Does your aquarium receive natural sunlight at any given part of the day? only through the curtains, not set up directyl infront of the window
10. When did you perform your last water exchange, and how much water was changed? daily 15%changes for the last 2 weeks
11. How often do you perform water changes?daily
12. How often and what foods do you feed your fish?cut down to once daily due to rise in ammonia-tropical fish flakes frozen brine shrimp, tropical water pellets (for dragon fish and ADF)
13. What type of lighting are you using and how long is it kept on? 12 hours.
14. What specific concerns bring you here at this time? white stuff on my black mollie
15. What are your water parameters? Test your pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. 
pH 7.6
ammonia 0.25ppm
nitrite 1.0ppm
nitrate 5.0ppm.......test done 10/13/09 at 11:00pm PWC immediatly following (15%)
16. What test kit are you using and is it liquid or test strips?API master freshwater testkit (liquid)
17. When was the last time you bought a fish and how did they behave while in the pet store tank? 2 weeks ago-albino corycat...he seemed very active at the store has not changed since he has been in his new home

.......i copied and pasted that from another post....thought it would be beneficial so i could make sure i had all the info you guys would need so here is my question....i had an ich issue approx 3 weeks ago...per my lfs i treated with 1 tbsp aquarium salt/5 gal of water.....at this point both my mollies and platy had severl white spots on them...the ich seemed to clear up with in a few days.....i've notice over the past 3-4days my black mollie had white stuff on the tips of his tail fin...now he has one under his left eye and behind his right gill and it has also spread to the tips of his other fins as well...he is still eating and acting fine last night durring the water change he played in the bubbles as usual. none of my other fish seem to be affected and it does not look like the same white spots as when they all had ich. my question is could this be a repete of ich on only one fish or could it be a fungus?? i do not have a heater on my tank but it stays steady between 80 and 81 deg f. if it is either fungus or ich how could i go about treating it?? i know some people recommend high temps for ich treatment but my tank temp is already fairly high....


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## Gav (Aug 22, 2009)

plenty of info, good to see . i see you're very keen on water changes 15% everyday lol which is why i am surprised at the stats, ammonia and nitrIte should be at zero both are toxic to fish and as far as I know nitrAte should be the same in a non-planted tank, in a planted tank it should be between 0.5 and 1.0 (or is it 5 and 10, i'll double check that for you).

mollies are more of a brackish fish, i had a pair or black lyretail mollies once they lasted for a while then they developed the same problem as yours, white fungus, stats need to be spot on for mollies to be healthy if not well you can see for yourself. the lifecycle of ich is 2 weeks so you should have seen some signs of it before now if your tank has been clear for at least 3 weeks. when i had my fungus problem it did not spread and only my mollies were effected, so you could try a medicine but i tried to get rid of the problem with no success, i eventually gave up because it wasn't worth me having other fish putting up with constant doses just for a pair of mollies. 

If you like the mollies and want to keep them you could try doing a 60% water change (to clear the stats) then treat with a good brand of fungus infection meds for the stated period of medicating, see how the mollies look after that and decide on what you are going to do if you have no luck.


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## molliefan09 (Sep 21, 2009)

thanks for the info.....i have 2 mollies one black mollie and one lyretail mollie....4 out of the 7 inhabitants of my tank are brackish water fish but my lfs and a few other people told me that it is not important to keep them in a brackish tank that they will adapt well to any tank including a salt water tank if i desired that.....i also have one fry lyretail mollie all other mollies in the tank are fine... maybe because he's black and the others are orange i dont notice it on them if they have it do you have any recs on meds???


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## 1077 (Apr 16, 2008)

Medications will have little if any effect until ammonia,and nitrite levels are zero all day, every day.
Water changes with a dechlorinator such as PRIME or AMQUEL+ will help with both ammonia,and nitrites. See that no one else is feeding the fish and only feed the fish what you actually SEE them eat in a couple minutes. For no more fish than you have,a dime size amount of food crushed up,would do once each day or every other day. Fish food,and fish poop,=ammonia. 
Also agood idea to vaccum a small area of the gravel when doing water changes. You can split the tank into thirds and vaccum a different one third each week. much of what contributes to ammonia levels in tanks is a result of uneaten food and fish waste laying on the gravel.
Filters hold most of the beneficial bacteria that eat the ammonia and therefore should be cleaned only when water cannot flow through them or water has been slowed down considerably. Clean the filter cartridges or pads,sponges etc, in dechlorinated water or old aquarium water you take out during water changes. clean8ng this material in tapwater can destroy portions of the bacteria (good kind).
Once you get the water parameters in check , you may find that fish can recover from what ails them without the need for medications. . However,for fungus,,I would look for medication that specifically works on that and follow directions. 
I would were it me,continue with water changes of perhaps twice weekly with no more than 30 percent being removed at one time and monitor the fish before resorting to medications. If a fish dies.(it happens) I would remove it and continue to maintain the water quality = 0 ammonia,0 nitrites,and nitrAtes no higher than 20 ppm.


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## molliefan09 (Sep 21, 2009)

thank you 1077 for the advice it was very helpful!! as i have said many times on here i am very new at aquarium keeping and i do appreciate everyone on here being as helpful as you are!


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