Should I Be Concerned For Ich?

Hey FishLore, been a while.

I recently redid my 55g aquarium again to go for a planted community. I had taken back my peacocks so I really loaded up on fish for the new setup since my tank could handle the bioload. On Friday, I bought a school of 13 neon tetras, 8 albino corys, a black Angelfish (I know it can eat neons but this one is small, gonna move it when it gets bigger), a guppy trio, and a Siamese Algae Eater. I already had a Syno Eupterus from the peacock tank in there and I kept it in.

Some weird stuff has happened so far. Lately, my syno cat has been acting skittish around me more than usual. He's always been shy since he's a lone syno cat, but more now than usual. The day after I bought them, one of the neons died. These two things made me do a deep search to see if anything was wrong visually last night. Of all the fish in there, I noticed one white dot on the syno cat, and 2 dots on 2 of the neons. These dots were microscopic and it's hard to tell if the fish have always had them or not. I also noticed there's a lot of small dots (I assume waste) floating around my tank since I've been messing with the substrate recently. Given this info, I was torn on whether or not it could be ich. I fed them and all of the fish ate normally.

Fast forward to today, and the dots have remained on the exact same fish. Same number, no new spots on any other fish. Once again, all of the fish ate well and nothing has changed besides the SAE. The SAE right now is swimming around upside down and seems to have trouble stabilizing. I assume this is some sort of bloat issue, which I've seen before, and I assume he's going to die soon. So as of right now, I have no idea what's going on with this tank. As far as I can tell, all of the fish have otherwise been acting normally besides the neons seem to be sparring now and then, but still schooling together.

Seeing how nothing much has changed, should I assume ich is in my system, or could it be something else? I'm going to play it careful regardless, but I'd like some more informed opinions on what could be going on. I would take pictures of the fish that have had these small spots, but they're too small for me to get on camera. Thanks!

 

I would just monitor for now. Ich spreads very fast. I wouldn't assume that it's Ich at this point.

 

I would just monitor for now. Ich spreads very fast. I wouldn't assume that it's Ich at this point.

Thanks! How about the neon sparring? They kinda just take turns chasing at each other, but still stop at times and start schooling again. Is this normal? I've never heard of neons being aggressive to each other.

 

Thanks! How about the neon sparring? They kinda just take turns chasing at each other, but still stop at times and start schooling again. Is this normal? I've never heard of neons being aggressive to each other.

That sounds like normal behaviour. Most schooling fish will interact with each other by displaying or sparring at times. The issue with SAE is not good, do you have any water test results?

 

That sounds like normal behaviour. Most schooling fish will interact with each other by displaying or sparring at times. The issue with SAE is not good, do you have any water test results?

He just died sadly. I tested my water. I'm at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 20 nitrate. pH is normal. He was totally fine until I turned the lights on today and he just died. I assume it was swim bladder.

 

Hard to say, SAE's are normally quite hardy. What do you call normal pH and what's your water hardness? Just wondering since you had African Cichlids in there.

 

Hard to say, SAE's are normally quite hardy. What do you call normal pH and what's your water hardness? Just wondering since you had African Cichlids in there.

My area's water is pretty hard. pH here is 7.8. I have this pH in all of my tanks with different kinds of fish and my current soft water preferring fish are doing well. I wouldn't entirely rule out the hard water stressing it out, but if I'm being honest I bought him when he looked pretty stressed and finnicky already. He was a donation to the LFS and looked terrified so I took him out of pity.

 

Ok, I agree. pH/hardness would only be a factor if the new fish were subject to an immediate and dramatic change in parameters.