White spots appeared on betta overnight.

I have a new betta that has developed white spots seemingly overnight. I have photos of him from 2 days ago and the spots are not there. He lives in a 10 gallon tank. I’ve been lucky and haven’t had many sick bettas in the past so I’m not very experienced with betta diseases. It looks like ick to me, but some of my fish friends said ick would be bigger. I also don’t know what could’ve caused it, what would make something like this appear overnight? I added snails to his tank this morning, if it is a parasite, could they have come from the snails? I can’t imagine they could spread that fast but again, I’m not too well educated in this area. On another note, could I be overreacting and it’s bubbles and/or debris from the water change I did this afternoon? I’ve never noticed anything like this before, but I thought I’d ask anyway. Any help is greatly appreciated, thank you.

 

Looks like ich to me, sadly. Should be pretty easy to cure if you act on it. Copper-based medicines are good here, like Cupramine, though you would need to remove the snails.

 

Hikari Ich-X is great stuff. Doesn't look that bad, try raising the temp and cleaning your substrate and frequent water changes

 

Hikari Ich-X is great stuff. Doesn't look that bad, try raising the temp and cleaning your substrate and frequent water changes

Thank you, I was actually just looking into that! Do you know if it would harm nerite snails?

 

Thank you, I was actually just looking into that! Do you know if it would harm nerite snails?

Not sure to be honest, that's part of the reason why I prefer to use medicine. You don't have to raise the temps and it works faster, but it can be harsh on fish and not sure about inverts.

 

Most medicines are not great for inverts and scaleless fish (like corydoras, for example), especially if there is salt or copper in it. Trace amounts of copper are not harmful (they're present in most fertilizers, too). It's hard, since snails can often be carriers of parasites that don't affect them, but affect other fish. I say do some additional research and use your best judgement. I had to get lavamisole for internal parasites a few months back, and it didn't hurt a single thing in my tank except for both parasites and snacking worms. But it's expensive, and I don't know if it will work on the ich parasite.