Goldfish Ich Help?

Discovered a single white spot on the dorsal fin of a goldfish today—not sure if it's ich or not, and I can't seem to get a proper photo as he's moving far too quickly. I know ich looks like your fish has been sprinkled with salt, so as I can only see one white bump, I'm wondering if ich does show up like this in the beginning—one spot at first, and then the rest quickly follow. A couple days ago I did notice him flashing and spending a lot of time swimming through the air stone bubbles, despite water parameters looking good, but he seems to have stopped and is acting normal again—gills and breathing look healthy, no clamped fins, not lethargic at all.

Basically, I'm fairly certain this might be the start of ich, and I've looked up multiple forum posts and websites and done my research on the disease and on how to treat goldfish but I'm getting mixed results.

Regarding the heat and salt method—will this be safe for goldfish? I know they prefer colder water, so I've heard that for these fish, buying medication for ich would be the best way to go rather than stressing the fish out with temperature? I've been recommended Kordon Ich Attack, but I'm not sure how effective any medications might be.

If I do go by the heat method, is there a specific heater I would have to buy? I don't currently own one for a tank this large, and I know that I would have to be raising the temperature a few degrees at a time spaced out over about a day or two, so is there a specific heater out there that would let me manually input or increase the temperature like this? All heaters I normally see are preset to heat the water up to a certain temperature—usually around 78°—which is too drastic for goldfish, and there is no way of raising the temp, either. Or is there a different way of managing temperature that I'm completely unaware of—I'm still a bit of a novice, sorry.

Any help is appreciated.

 

Can I see a picture? If so I can identify if he has ich or if it's just sand.

 

Can I see a picture? If so I can identify if he has ich or if it's just sand.

This is the best I could manage, sorry about the poor quality, he's a fast swimmer. Not sure if this is even helpful.
Definitely isn't a grain of sand—it's far too big and almost fungus-like?

 

Does it look like cotton? If so it is cotton fungus.

 

Does it look like cotton? If so it is cotton fungus.

Could be.. I have fungal medication on hand so now I've to decide whether to wait a day or two and see what happens to better diagnose? Would fungus show up as a single dot patch like this?

 

Could be.. I have fungal medication on hand so now I've to decide whether to wait a day or two and see what happens to better diagnose? Would fungus show up as a single dot patch like this?

Yup! And it spreads quickly, so I would start as soon as you can.

 

I had an ich outbreak on some tetras that started like this, single white grain of salt looking spot on a fin, went away and thought I was safe, 2 days later it was on another fish. And only spread from there. I caught it quickly and heat alone worked to cure them along with good water changed and thorough gravel vacs every other day. I'd say keep an eye out and watch closely.