Ich :(

[toad]

A couple days ago, out of the blue, I lost one of my balloon mollies. He was having a hard time swimming, so I thought it was swim bladder disease.

Today, however, my one remaining neon is white and fuzzy and the rest of the community is acting very sluggish and out of character. They're not excited about food, either.

Nothing new has gone into the tank, so I have no idea what the heck is happening. I thought ich was spread through contact - perhaps the neon doesn't have ich? What else is white and fuzzy?

[ebettalover963]

I have no idea but it sounds really contagious. Do you have a separate tank or something that you could put the infected fish in so the disease doesn't spread so easily and then do a very thorough cleaning with everything and it wouldn't hurt to boil your gravel and decorations unless you don't want to do that. But that is what I have done with all of my new fish so if they do have a disease or are sick that they don't pass it on to the other fish but that is what i would do.

[toad]

I'm sorry, I don't know why she's upside down - she was right side up when I took the picture, but my crazy iPhone flipped the pic.



The white fluff is on her head, base of her dorsal fin and her pectoral fins. Poor little thing :( I don't have anywhere else to put her, unfortunately, but I can run out and buy something to treat the tank with if someone can tell me what to use. They were fine just 2 days ago.

[shellieca]

From what I understand Ich looks like they were sprinkled with sugar so I don't think that's what she has. If it were Ich the best treatment I've been told by numerous people is heat & lots of good water changes with vacuuming. Because your is fuzzy I think it's a fungus of some type.

[toad]

I think you're right - I googled for pics of ich, and they don't look fuzzy.

She looks like she's got mold on her :( I have no clue where this could have come from.

[MyRainbowBettaFish]

could it be fungus?

[skepkat]

I'm basically new to fish keeping, so I can't tell you what it is, but it sounds a bit like what hit my community tank. I thought it was ick at first because it initially just looked like salt on their fins. Soon it shifted to fuzz. I'm beginning to think it was Columnaris - but that's just a shot in the dark, really.

For me, it started a week ago today. Even though I separated the "sick" fish at the first sign and treated everyone with aq salt, it didn't help my betta or the white clouds. Aggressive salt treatment helped some of the neons. I tried heat with my betta, as a precaution, but he quickly showed symptoms & died in the same 24 hours. At first, frequent water changes with upper tolerance for aq salt did seem to help the white clouds & neons. Throughout the week, the white clouds died. They never showed symptoms. Out of 10 fish, 2 neon tetras are still alive.

I've been super cautious with my other tanks (my hands are seriously dry from washing them so often in water that's just shy of burning me). So far, this is my only sick tank.

Sorry, I can't be more help. I hope someone can give you a solid answer. And best of luck to you & your fish.

[Silverfang]

fungus and or columnarious. I know the treatment for bettas is AQ salt. If columnarious then it is highly contagious. There are two forms, slow moving and fast acting. With fast acting the fist will be gone in 24 hours usually. Kanaplex is the only thing I have had success with when treating that evil C. Do NOT raise the heat, keep it at about 75-76. The both diseases multiply and spread faster in the heat.