Ich!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or not??? ?

Question

i brought 3 peacock cichlids today they all have white spots on there lower back fin but i googled them in images and i am don't sure now if there ment to look like that or if it ich or not and what can i do to stop it if it is without using quick cure or anything like that dose increasing the heat and puting a pinch of sea salt work?

Answer 1

Ich has three life stages, which are important to understand for proper diagnosis and treatment.

When the parasite is visible to the naked eye, it is a nearly fully developed trophont which has burrowed under the fish’s mucus coating where it is protected from chemicals (medication). It has likely been feeding on the body fluid of the fish for several days and has swelled to many times its original size. At common aquarium temperatures of 75 to 80ºF this feeding stage lasts only a few days, at which point the fully developed cyst drops off the fish as a tomont.

The tomont may swim for several hours before settling on and attaching to the substrate, a plant, or some other surface. During that time it is susceptible to chemicals and medication will be effective. Once attached, it begins its reproductive stage. It encysts and begins rapidly dividing. At this point, it is again immune to chemicals. Within a few days, hundreds of new organisms burst from the cyst, sprout cilia and start swimming in search of a host.

These are now referred to as thermonts or swarmers, and they must find a host within a few days or they will die. (For this reason, we know that even an aquarium heavily infested with Ich would be “clean” and safe for new fish after only a week or two without fish in the tank.) Medication is effective at this stage. Once the thermont attaches to a host and burrows in, it is referred to as a trophont and the cycle begins again. Unfortunately, with each cycle the number of organisms in the tank increases dramatically.

So basically, right now you need to add heat to the tank to speed up the process and turn the trophonts into tomonts, so they are vulnerable to the medicine. Then the Ich Medicine will take care of the rest. You also need to add Aquarium salt to the water to prevent the fish from becoming infected again, as well as StressZyme to help the fish heal.

p.s. in addition to this, perform a 30% water change every day for the next week.

And remember, Medicine unfortunately is necessary to heal your fish.

Answer 2

Ich will look like grains of salt. If it is bigger than that it is probably part of the fish.  I saw some fish and it looked like ich but it was part of the fish.  Ich is small dots.

Answer 3

Don't worry!

Peacocks and many other fish have spots on their lower back fin. This is called an eggspot. It is fairly easy to tell eggspots and whitespot (ich) apart - eggspots are simple circles found on the back fin only, and whitespot is millions of tiny white pricks all over the fish's body.