Black spots on Cichlids

[SethD]

About six weeks ago after moving from Pretoria to Durban, my fish suffered fin rot due to some negligence on my part - I forgot to sterilise a new rock before loading it into the tank. After they recovered from the fin rot, a few of the fish started showing black spots. One of the fish already had a black spot before the fin rot.

I treated the fin rot with Waterlife Myxazin, the best medication I could get from my LFS. The fish have fully recovered from the fin rot, but now the black spots are the problem. Other than the black spots, I have not observed any other symptoms.

Water quality has been ok as far as I can tell, no ammonia spikes and nitrites have remained 0. I do water changes once or twice a week, at least 10% sometimes 20% at a time.

I have some live plants in the tank which have started to get a lot more black algae growth since the move - which does indicate some change in water quality between PTA and Dbn.

I've tried treating the affected fish in a medication tank with broad spectrum medications, first Tetra General Tonic and then Bio-Elite Heal All. I know these are not the best options out there, but this is what I could get hold of. Neither has helped.

If I could identify what was wrong, perhaps I would know how to treat this.
All I could find in the web as a possible diagnosis was "Ichthyosporidium hoferi".

Any idea's or help on this would be appreciated?

[Skaapietjie]

My gf has the same problem with her tinfoil barbs , I noticed it yesterday whilst cleaning her tank. The fish dont seem to act funny , but rather get rid of it before its to late.
Sorry SethD , dont mean to hijack your thread , just dont want to post a new one if we have the same problem.
Her fish didnt have rot though..
Im doing some reading on the net , will post if I find something , in the meantime , if anyone knows anything , advice would be welcome!

[Willem]

I have had the same problem with mine and somebody told me it was stress I took the infected fish out and put them in another tank and it was a week and all the spots were gone now they live happily together.

[Skaapietjie]

Im struggling to find info on this..
Tanx for the input Willem , il try get a tank from someone to use for a few days and see what happens..
Could the water temp be part of the problem , I saw her dad put the temp ro 33!!!!!!! I think he wants to eat the fish!!
I secretely dropped the temp to 24 , I know its low , but the weather here is very warm , so the temp should be above that the whole time..

[Firefly]

This looks like stress on the fish's part. With the fin-rot, medication and moving, fish can get stressed and change color. Help them by just leaving the tank be, don't move anything around or take stuff out. Let them get used to the tank for a while.

[SethD]

For those that followed this thread previously...

The black spots did not go away till I increased my water changes to improve the water quality. I did not have a nitrate test kit during this problem. I purchased one and tested the nitrates and found them to be quite high, around the 50ppm level. Several WCs later, the levels range from 12.5 to 25 ppm. I started that 1 month ago and the spots are almost completely gone now.

My tank is heavily stocked, so I have to do 50% WCs weekly to keep the nitrates levels in check.

[Jenn]

Well done! Glad it's cleared up - the black spots and the mystery ;)