[monster mac]

Was about to change out the water on my smaller 10 gallon tank and noticed one of the cory's has some white fuzz on his right fins only. Don't know if this is what ich looks like or if he is getting picked on by one of the siamese algae eater (2). He is also the smallest of 5. Only other thing in the tank is RCS ans a Nerite snail. Oh and Nitrate lvls are through the roof 80ppm, possibly only affecting the weakist?

 

[Oceangirl]

WOW, Please do a water change, anything over 30 PPM is going to cause stress and start killing your fish. Try adding Frogbit and Anacharis to soak those Nitrates up!!

 

[Oceangirl]

What are your other parameters? What is your water change sch? Add any new fish in the last few weeks? Do you use Prime? What brand water conditioner?

 

[aquarist]

I cannot see what you are describing in the pictures, but from what you have described I would say is was Ick, there are several things you can do about it.

Once you see Ick on your fish, your entire aquarium is infected, Ick lives in the substrate and does not appear on fish till late in it's live cycle.

My local fish store (one of the large P chains) is horrible about getting fish in that are infected with ICK, so I have had a good bit of practice curing it.

Providing you do not have any cold water dependent plants or livestock if is advised that you raise your tank temperature to 80 degree, Ick cannot survive in warmer waters. There are many chemicals out there for curing Ick I have had the best results with QuICK Cure, just follow the directions on the bottle and you should be okay. On occasion I will extend the treatment to 2 weeks from the suggested 1 week, with a 50% water change on day 7. Hope this helps.

 

[Kat12]

Be cautios with meds if you have inverts

 

[monster mac]

What are your other parameters? What is your water change sch? Add any new fish in the last few weeks? Do you use Prime? What brand water conditioner?

Tend to do water changes every week of around 20% or so. 7ph/ 0 nh3/ 0 no2/ 80 no3. Haven't added any fish or plants, i have actually taken some out do to the fact that nitrates have been creeping. I do use prime for added tap water but not for RO water from the LFS. Just did a water change today GRADUALLY of around 50%. Thanks.

 

[cjipping]

This is definitely not ick and using a medication for ick will only further hurt/stress the fish.

What you have is a fungal infection. It is caused by a either an injury becoming infected or because of dirty tank conditions. Given where your nitrates are I would put more of the blame on the tank conditions. I suspect that you have a lot of nasties in the substrate/gravel. Because Corys spend all their time on the bottom, they occasionally show these sorts of infections if the substrate is not properly cleaned.

Given that this thread is 10 days old, I suspect that the fish in question is either recovering or has passed, but should your other Corys show the same condition, do not treat it as ick as it is a fungal infection.

If you want a medication to help, focus on fungicides. However, without fixing the cause of the fungal infection, which I suspect is dirty substrate, you will not be able to cure the fish. The dirty substrate may be caused by the tank being overstocked, which may be the case if you have 2 SAE in a 10 gallon (depending on their age).

Adding MTS (if not already present) may help keep the substrate cleaner moving forward and removing fish to other tanks will significantly assist you in both the Nitrate and dirty substrate categories. As stated previously, floating plants or hornwort will assist in reducing the nitrates, but that may not entirely solve the problem if organic waste in the substrate is the cause.