White spot on my male GBR?

[Gudgie]

Tank
What is the water volume of the tank? 20 gallons
How long has the tank been running? Since Mar 2021, though I redid the tank earlier this week (no new cycle)
Does it have a filter? Yes, fluval canister
Does it have a heater? Yes
What is the water temperature? 83F
What is the entire stocking of this tank? (Please list all fish and inverts.) 2 GBR, 6 green neons, 6 ember tetras, 1 nerite, 1 amano

Maintenance
How often do you change the water? approx every 2 weeks
How much of the water do you change? ~50%
What do you use to treat your water? Prime
Do you vacuum the substrate or just the water? I vacuum substrate

*Parameters - Very Important
Did you cycle your tank before adding fish? Yes
What do you use to test the water? API master test kit
What are your parameters? We need to know the exact numbers, not just “fine” or “safe”.
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 5-10
pH: roughly 7.2

Feeding
How often do you feed your fish? once daily
How much do you feed your fish? small amount of pellets or frozen
What brand of food do you feed your fish? Kens, Bug Bites, etc.
Do you feed frozen? Sometimes
Do you feed freeze-dried foods? No

Illness & Symptoms (just my male GBR)
How long have you had this fish? Since Oct 9th
How long ago did you first notice these symptoms? 2-3 days ago
In a few words, can you explain the symptoms? There's a small white spot on his dorsal fin; it does appear to be raised slightly, but hard to tell. I'm wondering if it could be Ich or epistylus (or fungal?), but I'd like a second opinion since I'm really not sure (and I know the treatments are quite different). He's otherwise acting fine, and I haven't seen anything on the other fish.
Have you started any treatment for the illness? Not for this. I did previously treat the tank preemptively for parasites with two rounds of General Cure and two rounds of Expel-P since they were all newly acquired fish.
Was your fish physically ill or injured upon purchase? Nothing obvious
How has its behavior and appearance changed, if at all? Just the white spot, otherwise behavior seems normal and appears healthy.

Explain your emergency situation in detail.
My male GBR developed a white spot on this dorsal fin sometime over the last few days. It's just a single small spot, and he's otherwise acting fine. Does anyone think this looks like Ich, epistylis, or something fungal? Leaning towards not ich, but otherwise I’m not sure. Trying to decide what if anything to treat with, but I don't want to be blindly hitting the tank with meds. I haven't noticed anything else on the other fish.

 

[A201]

I think it's a small abrasion on the dorsal with a bit of fungus attached.
Probably not Ich or Epistylis. Keep the tank maintenance up & watch for any changes in the situation.

 

[Gudgie]

I think it's a small abrasion on the dorsal with a bit of fungus attached.
Probably not Ich or Epistylis. Keep the tank maintenance up & watch for any changes in the situation.

Thanks, glad it didn’t look like those to you either. Hopefully it clear up on its own eventually, but I’ll keep an eye on it.

 

[86 ssinit]

I see those white dots on my discus every so often. They’re a sign that the water needs to be changed. I’d say when you redid your tank something was released from the substrate that effected your ram. With the discus if I changed 50% water every other day it was gone by the third change. I’d up your water changes to weekly.

 

[Gudgie]

Okay, I'm still not sure what's going on but things have gotten worse. I can't tell if the new changes are due to injuries (the two rams sparring?) or if there's been an escalation in possible illness.

Male ram: has a small red patch on his lower lip. He also still has the white patch on his fin, I think a little larger than before. He otherwise still has normal behavior. One blurry photo below of the male - just to show the red bit on his lip.



Female ram: Drastic change. Is a bit darker, and is mostly hiding and not coming out to eat (normally she's happily out front pigging out). She seems to be possibly missing a scale and has something bright red sticking out on her left side. Also I think breathing a bit hard, though hard to say for sure. I can't tell if this is an injury or what it is. I've never witnessed the two rams sparring, but I suppose I can't rule it other either. Please see pics! She seemed fine when I fed them yesterday, so this is new in the last 24 hours or so. Photos below are all the female - I tired to get some different angles.


I tested tank parameters yet again, and had done a couple partial changes since the weekend just to be safe. Water still looks great - nitrates even lower than before, so I'm not sure how that would be the problem.
Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - < 5 ppm
Temp: 83.5F

I see those white dots on my discus every so often. They’re a sign that the water needs to be changed. I’d say when you redid your tank something was released from the substrate that effected your ram. With the discus if I changed 50% water every other day it was gone by the third change. I’d up your water changes to weekly.

When I rescaped, the substrate was completely swapped out as was most of the water within the tank (any water that I put back in after the rescape was removed to a bucket prior to any substrate disturbance). The rams and other fish were not added until a day after everything new was in place, and had never been in this tank previously. I think the substrate is probably an unlikely cause (if not for the complete swap, I agree it totally could have released something awful). It is new driftwood though. I boiled it first to be safe, but it could have carried in something... I did also add in the giant hairgrass in the last week or so. It had QT'd for 1-1.5 weeks with multiple water rinses in between, but could that have brought something in?

Any thoughts on both fish greatly appreciated! From what I can tell, all tetras still remain unaffected.

 

[Gudgie]

Overall sad update. I decided to try a dose of kanaplex last night, in case they were wounds and it was a bacterial issue. Sadly, the female didn’t make it and found her dead earlier today. On the bright side, I’d say the white spot on the male’s fin looks a bit better, so that’s something. Still going to be monitoring the tank closely to see how everyone else does.

 

[Gudgie]

Update to say the male ram ended up not making it either. His fin started to look better, but then he had a wound on his head starting around Nov 5th that looked possibly like HITH/hexamita, not sure. I had been feeding meto in food, plus I'd tried a tank dose of kanaplex, but sadly lost him on the 12th. Still not sure if it was weak stock, if they were sick when I got them (one of these two seems likely?), or if it was something about the tank. At least the tetras all seem unaffected.