Oranda Forever Spots

[NanK]

I have a 5" red cap that developed whitish spots on all of his fins.
Placed him in a hospital tank 6 days ago. Began treating him with
Maracide and Fungus Cure expecting to see improvement, even though I
cannot really identify the underlying disease causing the spots from the
available literature on the web, although I THINK it is velvet.

- It is NOT ick.
- His fins are not frayed at all -- they just have these patchy, small
gray-ish spots which look more gold, and more well-defined, today.
- He IS and has been eating.
- He WAS rubbing once in a while, but has stopped.
- His gills are less red than they were.
- He does yawn on occasion.
- Today, around his eye and along the bottom of his top fin, I noticed
pinpoint-sized red spots just this morning.

I raised the temp in the tank to a steady 78 degrees. Added salt. No
carbon - just BioMax. Seachem's STABILITY is keeping the biobugs in
good shape.

Should I be looking at another type of medication? What about the Pond
meds - QUICK CURE, or some other broad spectrum product?

Or should I continue with what I'm doing?

Thanks for your assistance!
n

[Elaine T]

NanK wrote:
> I have a 5" red cap that developed whitish spots on all of his fins.
> Placed him in a hospital tank 6 days ago. Began treating him with
> Maracide and Fungus Cure expecting to see improvement, even though I
> cannot really identify the underlying disease causing the spots from the
> available literature on the web, although I THINK it is velvet.
>
> - It is NOT ick.
> - His fins are not frayed at all -- they just have these patchy, small
> gray-ish spots which look more gold, and more well-defined, today.
> - He IS and has been eating.
> - He WAS rubbing once in a while, but has stopped.
> - His gills are less red than they were.
> - He does yawn on occasion.
> - Today, around his eye and along the bottom of his top fin, I noticed
> pinpoint-sized red spots just this morning.
>
> I raised the temp in the tank to a steady 78 degrees. Added salt. No
> carbon - just BioMax. Seachem's STABILITY is keeping the biobugs in
> good shape.
>
> Should I be looking at another type of medication? What about the Pond
> meds - QUICK CURE, or some other broad spectrum product?
>
> Or should I continue with what I'm doing?
>
> Thanks for your assistance!
> n
>

To me, early velvet usually looks like a bit of gold irridescence on the
scales - maybe a light dusting of mica. There are two ways to see
velvet more easily. I've used a magnifying glass on bettas in small
bowls to see the individual parasites. You can also turn off the tank
and room lights and shine a flashlight on the fish. The parasites will
look sort of like gold or grey dust or coating on the fish. I don't
know about the red spots, unless they're a bit of secondary infection
from the velvet - maybe someone else will have an idea.

I totally agree with you on the raised temps and salt. Velvet is
photosynthetic when it's free-swimming so another trick is to darken the
tank. It sounds like the Maracide is helping since the scratching has
lessened and and his gills are looking better. Staying the course with
the higher temps, salt, and dark tank may be enough.

If you want to be a bit more aggressive and specific for velvet, the
classic treatments (from Untergasser's book) are quinine or acriflavine.
People also use copper products like Coppersafe or Aquarisol with good
results. Acriflavine has the advantage of being pretty broad spectrum
so you may weaken secondary bacterial infections with it as well
treating the velvet.

--
Elaine T __
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