Fungus I'm not familiar with...

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The Angry Loach
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2013 12:03 am

Fungus I'm not familiar with...

Post by The Angry Loach » Sun Feb 02, 2014 5:03 am

Hey guys. I need some help again. My QT has been overrun! But with what, I'm not sure. I've been keeping up pretty well with keep the QT clean, but these last week or so the feeding has been left to my better half due to my late work schedule. Unfortunately, when I came home, one of my baby bala sharks had died and the other is covered top to bottom with white bumps. I assumed Ich to be the cause, but it spread within the last 24 hours at a very rapid pace. I can't tell you the water parameters as of right now, but I do weekly water changes of about 25% and change the carbon filters every other week or so. There's no substrate in the bottom of the tank, so I can clearly see what caused the problem. There is a lot of left over food in the tank, including what appears to be an algae tab from yesterday and another one added today. The reason I'm not sure if it's Ich is that it's also white and patchy on the glass. I'm not seeing any movement from the masses, so I don't think it's a living parasite of any kind. I siphoned up all the yucky stuff from left over food and gave a half dose of Ich treatment since there's also a tiny lace cat in there as well. This should take care of the problem if it's a protozoan, but seriously, the growth rate on this stuff. The tank went from being very clean to almost being unable to see in the tank in about 48 hours. Tomorrow, I plan on doing a 50% water change and a second half dose of the Ich treatment when I get up before work and hopefully save my other bala shark and my tiny lace cat. They both have malformations and I took them in so they could have better lives, not die of terrible illness. If anyone has any ideas as to what this stuff is or could give me any ideas, I would be very grateful.
I liek feesh. And yes, I drew that xD

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The Angry Loach
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2013 12:03 am

Re: Fungus I'm not familiar with...

Post by The Angry Loach » Sat Feb 08, 2014 8:07 pm

Well, things didn't get much better. The next day, my bala shark with the three point caudal fin died and was covered. The glass could hardly be seen through. But, it helped me spot it a little better. It is wavy! It anchors in one spot and the rest just sort of bounces around in the current. I did a 100% water change and scrubbed the whole tank clean. I added my Lace cat back into the water and half dosed her with a fungus treatment. Things looked good for a couple days, but I'm seeing the patches on the glass again. I did a 25% water change and added API's fungus cure to the tank today. The lace cat has gotten pretty big, so she should be fine. It turns out the vendor that carried the fish also had a massive outbreak of the fungus and lost a good deal of their stock because of it. It doesn't make me feel much better, but at least I can tell myself they would have passed in or out of my care. I just hope no one else bought any of their fish during the beginning stages of the outbreak!
I liek feesh. And yes, I drew that xD

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LoachOrgy
Posts: 1235
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2007 1:09 pm
Location: Florida, USA

Re: Fungus I'm not familiar with...

Post by LoachOrgy » Sat Feb 15, 2014 3:36 pm

sorry to hear about your losses. i had some issues in a work tank when the fish were over fed. if something is really bad in the tank, id vaccum anything on the glass you see visible and do water changes. i also reduce feeding during treatment. is the eye cloudy? or is it more like cotton? i had the body slime/fungus look and the melafix was helping quite a bit more than other meds. i dually treated with tmp sulfa and that appears to be clearing it up. im coming close to the end of the tmp sulfa treatment and symptoms are reduced by about 99%. I have about 1% left to go. The larger clown that had body damage ended up getting more infected so i still visibly see some slime on one eye. the other loach has a slight slime. my question is, if this is slime, does the eye look like its slightly protruding from a side view on any of your fish?

do you think its a bacterial bloom? if so ive had this a few times in work fish tanks. what i did to clear it up is keep up about 25% maybe 30% water changes everyday, vaccum. clean out your filters. leave the bio filter or only clean it with used tank water. it takes a week or so to clear up a bacterial bloom, but usually it happens to me when there is extreme excess waste buildup. but with the tank having no substrate its strange.

the api fungus cure didn't work well for me. the fungus guard worked better. it also has nitrofuirzone in it. the victoria green b in the api fungus cure even at half dose didn't really sit well with my fish. and even now, the greenish color won't filter out of the tank with carbon in for days.
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The Angry Loach
Posts: 85
Joined: Sun Aug 04, 2013 12:03 am

Re: Fungus I'm not familiar with...

Post by The Angry Loach » Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:04 pm

Currently, all fish are unaffected, but the tank is. I have spare 10gals and I think I'll be switching over to one later today. I'll keep the fish in regular water for a day or two, and if I see anymore growth, I can treat again. the green is a pain to remove. I've done this treatment before. It takes couple days and then a few water changes later, it's back to normal. I end up with a funky yellow color for a week after adding the carbon filters and everyone thinks I'm just a terrible fish keeper. xD People only visit when I have sick fish.
I liek feesh. And yes, I drew that xD

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