RosiePosie

My silver dollar fish seems to have some sort of fungus. it's mostly on one side and seems to be slowly spreading to his fins. It appears to be small white spots (nonuniform spots) and seems to protrude from the body. It looks slightly cotton like but not excessive at all with little clumping. i've tried 2 different methods for fungus and neither worked. the first was PIMAFAX and MELAFIX in combination for suggested 7 days. this did not work and i repeated this for roughly a month. It appeared to control the disease but did not cure it, as soon as i stopped it appeared to worsen. i then tried API fungus cure (1 full dose) and still no progress. I'm now feeling like i may have misdiagnosed him. I'm afraid if i wait any longer he will die. a friend suggested i try pond salt should i try this? someone please help i don't want to lose my fish!!!!!!!!!!!
thanx

Lucy

Hi Rosie, welcome to Fish Lore.
I'm sorry you fish isn't feeling well. I know it's frustrating.
The white spots....do they look like grains of salt?
Can you post a pic? It might help the members figure out whats going on.
Good luck, I hope he feels better soon.

RosiePosie

Thank you for your concern and reply, to me they do not appear to look like grains of salt which is what LED me to believe it was cotton fungus. As this is my first time using this site I'm not quite sure how to do things but i will try to post a picture by attaching a file to this message, i think

PS: my fish has almost as long as i've had him(4-5yrs) had a red spot marking, which has led friends who know more than me to speculate that he is a cross-breed.

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navyscuba

Yes is a body Fungus call Columnaris. You can use Maracyn or Maroxy. Good luck.

RosiePosie

are you sure? why would this work over the other methods i've tried?

navyscuba

Well you said it look like cotton. I got a paper with some disease guide that show me pictures of them for easy Id the disease. Be aware it is contagious and it can get on bettas and other fishies too. Here is some info on it.

DISEASE: FUNGAL INFECTION

uGENERAL INFO:

If you always add aquarium salt to your betta’s water (1 teaspoon of aquarium salt per 2 1/2 Gal of water) and one drop of Aquarisol per gal, your betta will probably never get fungus. It is contagious, but bettas will more than likely recover if treated promptly.
uSYMPTOMS:

Betta has white cottony like patches on its body or head. He may be less active, may have stopped eating, fins may be clumped, color may be pale.
uTREATMENT:

Do a full jar water change. Add “Fungus Eliminator” by Jungle (included in our Betta First Aid Kit). These are crystals are dosage should be about 30-40 grains per 1/2 gal. Water should have a nice gold color, not too dark. Do not overmedicate! Change water every third day and add a new dose of same medication. Continue until all fungus has disappeared. Then switch to BettaZing (8 drops per gallon) to clean any other bacteria/fungus that may still be present.

for very stubborn or very fast invasive fungus use: Fungus Eliminator AND Bettazing TOGETHER, both at full dosage. (included in our Betta First Aid Kit) - Not very many fungus can survive this powerful duo!

Lucy

Here's a list of medications and diseases they treat. Read up on each one and decide which treatment seems best for you. I've had good luck with Fungus Eliminator.
Medications and diseases

RosiePosie

i've already treated him twice for fungus. is it wise to try this again?
i used the "best stuff" for fungus they had at my LFS, i don't want to waste anymore time (for the sake of my fishes life) or money on another fungal product if it's not going to work

agabr123

what products have you used so far?

RosiePosie

the products i've used thus far are in the first post

agabr123

lol, my bad! i cant believe i didn't even see that!

i don't think that the melafix treats fungus, but i know that the pimafix does. your results from that seem strange.....

it definitely looks like fungus to me, so i dont think that you misdiagnosed....

from what i know salt doesn't really help with fungus, so i would hold off on that for a while. the only fungal treatment i have any experience with is the jungle buddies tabs

do you have readings for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate? also, when you used the medications, did you add extra aeration to the tank (air stone, bubble wand, etc)?

cerianthus

Firstable, congrat on ownership of such very hard to obtain specimen. I belileve it is/closely related to Metynnis maculatus (red marking, seen it before): Bleeding Heart Silver Dollar. Notice the Hi dorsal fin different from common silver Dollars.

Seen similar symptoms on numerous occassion on Myleus sp, Metynnis Sp.. I dont remember losing fish due to my observed similar symtoms which did not lead to secondary/tertiary infection. More like tiny pimples on the skin. From pic,can not be sure wether slime is building around infected area (slime produced to deter irritants). If it is, it maybe infected w/ mutualistic parasite (sporozoans??, etc), usually non fatal but possible depending on healthiness of fish.
Treating with antibiotic may help with secondary/tertiary, fungal/bacterial infections (on slime, open wounds, etc) but may not do much against parasites themselves.
This microscaled/scaleless fish, if decided to treat with med for parasite , be careful on dosage since more sensitive to Anti Parasitic Med.

Since you have very rare fish, how about taking few more photos and send to Manuf of Med to see if they can determine what it is and treatment recommendation (preferrably in Q/T) rather than exposing fish to possible unnecessary/toxic treatments.

Send to few Manuf since some may/may not respond to you.
Most likely you will get mixed opinions. Do your own research thru book/online using their recomm as reference. You should be able come up with your own decisions.

Hope all goes well!!


I used to make a call to lfs to get their arrival schedules on Wild Fish just to look for rare tagalongs. I used to just collect these rare specimen, colorful or not, healthy or not , just for sake of owning and learn about such fish (some fish which were avail thru pics only and sometimes not even pics are avail).

Shawnie

we just had some silver dollars with that at work..and I thought it was a fungus or stress issue from having no power for 4 days....I didnt have any meds to treat as the stores were all closed...3 days after power was restored, I went to go to get meds, and come to find out someone tried to get this fish out of his tank and dropped him on the floor...he had a slime coat issue from that..im not saying anyone dropped her or whatever, but it looks entirely the same and now, 3 weeks later, after doing daily water changes with some stress coat + , mine are fine...silver dollars are very easily damaged from either banging on something, being moved, dropped in my case, or even just being nipped at as their slime coats are sensitive...after everything you have tried, you have covered most diseases with those meds, id go the stress coat+ method to see if that regenerates her slime..it wont happen overnight and as long as she is eating, and thriving, id try it at least

RosiePosie

agabr123
no, i do not have reading for ammonia, nitrite or nitrate as i do not normally test them. and no i did not add extra aeration, it this a good idea when treating a sick fish? also i used the Pima and Mila in combination as i was told to do so, is that ok?

Shawnie
i have been using stress coat as needed(almost daily more recently), as the dollar has seemed a bit stressed out how much stress coat do you suggest and how much h2o change do you suggest?

cerianthus
Slime does not appear to be building around the infected area, it just looks normal around the affect area and thanks for the info on the breed as i have been wondering almost as long as i've had him and i thin i will try sending pics to the manuf.

agabr123

a lot of medications (pimafix and melafix included, i think) call for extra aeration in the tank. it's a good idea because the medications can reduce the amount of dissolved oxygen in the water (this happens at higher temps as well, why it's recommended to add an airstone if increasing the temp when treating for ICH) and your fish could be "suffocating"

pimafix and melafix i think are meant to work together in some instances, so that shouldn't be the problem

Shawnie

I would get some stress coat+ as most of those meds that you used, will kill the cycle and you probably have some ammonia or nitrites from a mini cycle..the stress coat+ will help heal him and detox any of the other two if present...id do daily 30% water changes with the stress coat+ for a few weeks...

cerianthus

If and when response is obtained, how about posting so others can benefit. And course of direction you took and results would be great, wishing for good results of course!

cerianthus

I've been trying to catch up with new products on the market but i have not found any materials that Stresscoat+ detoxs Nitrite. So far from what i read, it seems Amquel+ and Prime claims to detox nitrite along with others. FYI.

BlowPhish

My Pearl had a cotton like fungus as well. Jungle fungus clear worked. It took 3 rounds of meds in a quarantine tank to cure him. When you see the fungus falling off of your fish you know the meds are working. After 2-3 days after they cottony stuff is falling off you can gently take off the rest of the dead fungus by hand. Or let it fall off naturally which can take another week. Increasing the temperature helps as well when your medicating fungus since it speeds up the fungus growth process.

Lucy

There was a thread about this recently. Shawnie called API. I forget if they said anything about nitrites. I'll see if I can find the thread.

, sorry I'm off topic.