# ich or not?



## bur05031 (May 2, 2008)

I have 1 gold gourami and 5 zebra danios plus and clown pleco in a 10 gallon tank. I am working on moving the pleco to a bigger tank with my african cichlids and keeping the 10 gallon as a community tank. My concern though is that the gold gourami has white spots on her tail. I was thinking it was ich, but its been about a week and the spots havn't left her tail like I thought they were normally supposed to. Also the other fish are completely ich free. I just wanted to know if this was actually ich I was dealing with or if its something else. Any thoughts or ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.


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## cichlidaholic (Dec 7, 2005)

You didn't mention how you were trying to treat the possible ich...

Any chance of a pic of the gourami?

Are there any spots on the body?

How long has this tank been set up? Were these fish in the tank for the cycling?

What are the water parameters on the tank?

Kim


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## bur05031 (May 2, 2008)

I have some store bought medicine, but I am hesitant to use it after the reading that I have done about the harm it can cause to the fish. Yes these fish were recomended for the cycling by the petsmart I bought them from and have been through the cycling process. The pleco was added after the cycle finished, but other than that nothing has changed. There are no spots on the body only on the tail fin currently. The tank has been set up for 6 weeks. I tried to get a pic of the gourami but the pictures turned out poorly because of my lack of camera skills and not so great camera. I have been doing regular testing with the master test kit and the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate levels have been staying where they should be also the temp has been 78 degrees since the tank started. You will have to forgive me I am rather new to this and I am still learning. Your help is greatly appreciated. If you need any other info please let me know. I will try again tomorrow to get a beter pic of the gourami.

John


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Can you give a better description of the spots, John? Do they look like grains of salt? Are they fuzzy? How big are they? As large as one of these:  ? Half that size?

Most meds you buy at the fish store for fish are safe for use on the fish but if you are uncomfortable using them, (and you're not alone in this), then you can safely and effectively treat ick using the heat and salt method. 
Directions on how to treat ick as well as how to identify ick are in the ICK ARTICLE linked below.

Robin


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## bur05031 (May 2, 2008)

I notice there are three spots on her tail. They are fuzzy. One of them is about half the size of the  and is about 1/4 of an inch from the base of her tail fin and about 1/3 of an inch from the top of her tail. then there are 3 spots that are 1/4 of the size of that one around it. Also I don't know if this is important or not but her poop is white to clearish and I know that can sometimes be not such a good thing. I am very grateful for your help.

John


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## Robin (Sep 18, 2002)

Doesn't sound like ick. The individual salt like spots can clump up to form a larger white spot but I think if you look close enough you'll be able to see that this is/is not the case. Also like you have already pointed out ick only remains on the fish for short period of time so if you're certain that these spots have remained in the same place and that they are the same spots then we're not looking at ick.

Is the fish eating? Does it appear unusually thin around the middle? 
How often are you doing partial water changes and how much water do you remove? 
Are your test kits relatively new?

Robin


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## bur05031 (May 2, 2008)

She seems to eat just fine. She has been a little pig since we got her and usually pushes the danio's out of her way to get at the food that hasn't changed at all. She does not seem thin at all to me. I do partial water changes every Saturday and I do 10-15% of the water usually closer to 10%. I got the master test kit that I have about 1 week after I started cycling the tank.


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