Black spots on Cichlids

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?

 

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!

 

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.

 

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..

 

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.

 

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.

 

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

 

I currently have a similar problem and it seems to be spreading.

I do around 30%+ water changes weekly and tank has been stable since May last year.

Should I just wait it out?

Sorry for the scratched tank, benefits of having a tight budget, haha

 

@braailegend , I think you have the same problem as the OP of this thread had

1.2m tank is a very small tank to cope with so many fairly big cichlids without very good filtration and fairly large water changes

You havent given details of your filtration but 30% water change once a week for this size tank and the number of fish is too little
Your tank may be established for long but the nitrates can climb very quickly even if the ammonia and nitrites are zero.

I would increase your water changes to 50% weekly or 30% twice a week
It would be a good idea to test your water now and then after you increase your water changes

 

Thanks, will do.

Have a Dolphin C1000 (no carbon just mech and chem 50/50) and a 4stage internal filter (Self upgraded, 70% and maybe 30% chem).

Adding a Temp large sponge filter as well.

Will then start looking for a second canister filter to support and increase water change frequency

 

Increase your water changes with immediate effect and that will already be a big help
Good luck
Start a thread of your own where you can record the progress and development of your tank
Always nice to be able to go and update your thread and go back on it years latter and see the history of your tank

 

Those black marks/scrapes isn't a disease. It's hit marks from other fish or from scraping against something and can be stress induced. It goes away quickly with good water quality. You also see it on discus parents when you don't keep tabs on the fry eating on them.

 

Thanks for the reply.

The tank has been running for about 6 months, with a lot more aggression.

However I have identified it as a parasite turbellarian (black ich).

The fish is currently being medicated with prazipro as precaution. Will see if there is improvement

 

Ok, keep medicating if you started but black spot is spotted more and you will actually see bumps and cysts. If you look at the black on these fish you can actually see the scrape and hit marks and is is on the places of the fish where they will take punches. Good luck and I hope they get better if it is black spot.

 

Here's what black spot looks like. With your fish it's either hits from aggression, stress or diet( if it's spirulina heavy, it brings out pigmentation). It's totally harmless but at least you know they will be worm free after the prazi, just keep tabs on your bio, prazi can nuke your bio.

 

Will do, I think it might also be some of the spirolina, as the tropheus are getting veg pellets, so obviously some goes to the venustus.
Will keep an eye on everything. Read that the prazi is bio safe and should keep filter running and if possible add directly to the filter.

But at the moment I'm rather safe than sorry, had an ich outbreak beginning of the year, which made me learn to rather over react, haha

Know the methelyn blue i used in my hospital tank kills of bio, so not bringing that near tank

 

Yes rather safe than sorry. Prazi is alright but it can cause trouble with the bio if used long enough and with high doses. Same as metro. It's safe but can also give your bio grief in large doses and for extended periods of time. A good indicator for me is watching the other life in the tank like the small critters on the glass. If those start to die off it gets my attention pretty quick.

 

@braailegend, @BoelderBeestie , pure Prazipro is 100% bio safe and doesnt nuke the filters unless you using some medication that contains something else together with Praziquantel
You can get the powder in pure form from your Vet, if he keeps it, but the Hikari agents are now bringing in Prazipro after we begged for it and pointed out taht if they want to import rays they have to make a plan to make Prazipro available in SA

Methylene blue can and most likely will nuke your bio

Metronidazole for certain parasites is also bio safe

Our rays get done with Prazi on arrival and as maintenance every 6 months
All our pups have been done with Prazi before beng sold.
No problems with bio
Its tops on the safe list of all big ray keepers around the world because of its safety on sensitive fish and being bio safe

 

Yes @MariaS those two are perfectly safe to use without worry under normal conditions. It's when the dosage is high that they can impact the biomedia to some degree. The reason we haven't had any problems is that the doses we used where light but with today's drug resistant parasites we use higher doses and this could have an impact on the bio indirectly.

Praziquantel can give you problems indirectly. It depletes oxygen as it does it's job and with raised temps while treating you could starve the filter of oxygen and have problems, especially canisters. It will probably not kill the whole filter but it might trigger a mini cycle or a bloom.

Here's a word from seachem. It is very unlikely I think as metro kills anaerobic bacteria I have dosed this very high without problems but rather safe than sorry. a Mini cycle or bloom with sick fish would suck and will probably give me a stroke.
http://www.aquaticplantcentral.com/forumapc/seachem/84069-seachem-metronidazole.html

So they are indeed bio safe but under certain conditions that we now are moving closer to we "might" have problems. I'm just very cautious these days.

 

@BoelderBeestie ...
You not supposed to have to ( its not recommended to) raise temperatures when using Prazi as it works at normal temperatures.
As for oxygen depletion as with all medications used or when raised temperatures are used it is always recommended to increase aeration in the tank and if this is done you have no problem
When using salt and high temps, it is exactly the same... increase aeration

Prazi itself makes your aeration and bubbles fizz into millions of little bubbles which contribute to water movement and thus increased aeration
In fact you need to keep and eye on sump if using high dosages so that the bubbles don't flow over
According to the manufacturer and the Vet as well as all the research I have done, it will not affect your bio
If Prazi caused mini cycles we would have dead rays every time its used or it caused a mini cycle because a ray cant handle the swings of cycling which is why it is the trusted meds in the ray keeping world all over the world

Metro kills anaerobic bacteria. ie.. bacteria that doesn't need oxygen to live like bacteria inside cysts and abscesses
Your bacteria in your bio is aerobic bacteria which needs oxygen to live so not affected by Metro

Caution must ALWAYS BE TAKKEN when using meds and meds should not be used for every little problem people think they have.