Black spots/freckles on clowns suddenly developed... *PICS*

[chefkeith]

Those are some great clowns you have. Thanks for getting the pics. It's great help.

That definately isn't black spot disease caused by a parasite. Black spot disease is also called black grub. They make black cysts in the flesh of the fish.


http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-15 ... --,00.html


http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/fish_diseases/neascus.html

The black spots your clowns have is just a blemish of some sort and it is not encysted.

[Icewall42]

Whew, that's a relief! I'm guessing since they have been okay for this long, there's no immediate threat, but I definitely want to see these spots gone. Thanks for all the compliments, and all the help

[Icewall42]

My TDS meter came today, so here are the readings:

Aquarium water: 306ppm

Tap water: 236ppm

Is that a wide margin?

[chefkeith]

Yes, IMO it's wide enough to cause stressful TDS drops and black spots from water changes. Your current TDS drop would probably be about 38 ppm after a 50% water change. I try to keep TDS changes under 10% from the source water. So if the source is 236 ppm, then your goal should be be to keep the change less than 24 ppm. You'll have to monitor the tap water for TDS changes though. Like I mentioned before, Philly has several treatment wells with different TDS levels which could impact your system.

You can better see the TDS changes using the Water Change Wizard program(only works with Internet Exporer) - http://www.geocities.com/chefkeithallen ... izard.html

Enter your best estimations.
1) Enter (65) gallons for actual water volume
2) Enter (.25) gallons for daily evaporation
3) Enter (1.5) ppm for pollution accumilated per day (Nitrates and fish waste estimate)
4) Enter (236) ppm for pollution level of source water
5) Enter (306) ppm for pollution level of Aquarium
6) Select (Every Other Week) for water change frequency
7) Enter (50) for water change %

With these inputs, your TDS should peak at about 311 ppm before a water change, and drop to about 273 after a water change. That's a drop of about 38 ppm.
At the bottom of the page is an equivancy chart for the pollution level plateau. It tells that a 32% weekly water change would have only have a 18 ppm TDS drop. That should be about what you should aim for IMO.

This program can very accurately estimate the level of TDS if the data entered is correct. If the results are not accurate, then there is a very high likelyhood that something is leaching in the tank.

[Icewall42]

Oh okay, thank you, all that information helps quite a lot. That'she amount of water change I'll try from now on.

I'm still just not sure though... the ppm has gone back up to what my fish are used to since the last water change, but the freckles are still getting even worse. They are not going away. I'm just not udnerstanding this Last water change was a week or so ago.

Edit: Oh yeah, that first picture I gave, that's Fornax, the 11 year old. He's the doofus that got stuck in the jar ornament a little while ago, the one we had to take a hammer and some needle nose pliers to. The owwy on his head, which looked kind of ugly, has since healed up nicely.

[chefkeith]

IME, the freckles won't go away by themselves and they only get worse.

I ended up removing all my rocks from my tanks. That seemed to help alot.

You probably should test some of the rocks. Put one rock in a bowl of distilled water and let it sit for a week. If the TDS climbs, then you probably should remove all those rocks from the tank.

Keep a daily journal of the tank and tap TDS for awhile just so that you can get an approximation how much it changes day to day, week to week, before and after water changes. If it's outside the normal, this might tell you if something is leaching in the water.

[Icewall42]

Hmmm I very highly doubt that the rocks are the culprit, since I haven't changed out the rocks (there's only two) or the bogwood (two pieces) for many years (3-4 or so). The loach tank water, from the 55 gallon to the 100 to finally this 72 gallon, has always been on the hard side, so 300ppm sounds about right. The tap water is the only culprit I can think of, since I hadn't added anything whatsoever to the tank around when these freckles appeared. This tank has been set up for 1 month+ ever since I had to break it all down and bleach it to death (due to a nasty epidemic that killed 5-6 of my fish). Believe me, I added a lot of dechlorinator and rinsed the tankas best I could when the fish went back in.

I'm dead convinced that none of the wood or the rocks are the ultimate cause of these freckles. They might be making the water harder than it probably should be, but hard water has been a very constant thing for my loaches. So has large water changes. And never freckles till now.

And if these fish are used to hard water, shouldn't their freckles be getting better, not worse, after not changing the water for a week?

[chefkeith]

And if these fish are used to hard water, shouldn't their freckles be getting better, not worse, after not changing the water for a week?

It's not a simple answer. I don't even know if my answer is correct.
My best explainations is that fish don't have an off switch. You just have to let it play out. The TDS drop from the water change is merely a spark that lights the fire.

My guess is that the black spots are caused by a glandular imbalance due to the change in osmotic pressure. The fishes pituitary gland produces hormon's that regulate their pigmentation. It's like a shipping clerk getting drunk and sending mail out to the wrong places. I'll leave it at that.

[Icewall42]

Oooooh okay.... well thank you for all the help you've given. Now that I know a bit more about the water, I'm going to see how this plays out. I'll let everyone know.

[Icewall42]

I don't know what to do anymore. All my clowns still have bad freckles. The second biggest clown has the freckles migrating to his nose to form a solid mass, while the biggest still has them all over his body. No changes in behavior or eating.

This is driving me up the wall. I finally said to heck with it and dumped salt in the tank, raising the TDS to about 400ppm. Absolutely no improvement. We made only a 20-30% water change. No change in the freckles.

And now not only do the clowns have it, but my largest modesta is getting these same freckles all over his belly.

I still have no clue what's going on, and I've run out of ideas on how to fix it.

Edit: I don't think this is at all related, but many weeks before these freckles showed up, there were tiny white worm things all over the glass. We scraped them off and changed the water, and some medications were in the tank after that I think, so they seemed to be killed off. I haven't seen any of these worms since. Is this at all related? Mt last idea, well, actually my boyfriend's, is to raise the temperature to 84-86F to see if it kills any invisible nasties in the tank.

[Tinman]

Remove your two rocks and after several weekly water changes see if you have any improvement. This is probably your culprit as there are no other issues other than tap water. I see no reason to keep them until they are proved inert. Do a bucket test on them after removing them to see if they affect the water chemistry especially hardness. Is your sand inert pool filter sand or something else? I mean did you read the bag and does /did it say INERT or just aquarium safe because many things are labeled aquarium safe and are far from it. Pool filter sand is 8.00 for 50#s so if you are not sure I would change that out also if the removal of rocks does not help.There is an explanation.You will find it. As you have found salt is not the answer.I belive it is likely your rocks are breaking down after all these years and causing this.

[chefkeith]

What was the TDS before and after the water change?

Like I said a few times, the black spots don't go away on their own. They usually just get worse. Water changes don't make the spots go away. If there is TDS problem, water changes make the problem worse.

I agree with Tinman. I think the rocks are probably breaking down and leaching something into the water.

Also, You'd need to use a stronger salt bath to get rid of the black spots. I don't recommend this though because you don't know the source of the problem and adding salt needs to be done with cation. When the salt treatment is done the spots will just come back.
For the salt treatment,
I used 2 teaspoons per gallon for 10 -14 days. That will bring the TDS up to to about 4000 ppm. The TDS meter will show 400 with a x10 blinking on the right side of the screen. The spots will start to fade after about 7-10 days, and should be completey gone by day 14.

The most important thing when using salt is to not just "dump salt in the tank". It needs to be added and removed very slowly.
A good way to add salt, is to mix it in a empty gallon milk jug with water. Set the jug above or on top of the aquarium, then run some airline tubing from the jug to the aquarium. Start the syphon how ever you like, and drip the salt water in aquarium slowly. Tie a not in the tubing to slow down the drip rate. Do it slow enough so that it takes 4 days to get the salinity level up to 4000 ppm. You may need to refill and add salt to the gallon jug several times during the 4 day period. You'll probably need about 2.5 cups of salt for your tank. I used canning & pickling salt. I'd only use 1/2 cup ( or .625 cups to be exact) of salt for one gallon of water. Then drip that everyday for 4 days.

After the spots are gone, do the water changes slowly to remove the salt. Just do 5 gallon water changes, once or twice per day until the TDS is back down to about 280 ppm. It will take about 1 or 2 months to get all the salt out at this rate though.

This is just a theory that I'm working on-

Salt is a slime coat and mucus inhibitor. Salt actually prevents a certain hormone from being released from the pituitary gland that go to the thyroid. The thyroid produces the mucus and slime coat. These black spots have something to do with hormones (not the sex kind) that involve pigmentation and mucus production from the pituitary gland. It's just a pigmentation or a clog of some sort. Maybe like pimples. The cause for it is this hormone imbalance. The reason for this hormone imbalance from what I'm gathering is that something is inhibiting the hormones (something that would increase the TDS), then the fresh water from a water change stimulates the mucus and pigmentation hormones, and that somehow causes the black spots.

This might be alot of hot air, I know. I don't know if I want to study this fish hormone stuff much further. It would require trips to a much better library than the one near me.

[Icewall42]

Oh okay, wow. I put in maybe 2 tablespoons of salt into the 72 gallon and that raised the ppm to 400. Before all this, when you suggested I do 30% water changes weekly, the ppm was about 306. When I did that water change, the meter read 312ppm, so change was minimal. I've also taken out the two rocks... I'm hoping they aren't leeching, because they are river rocks I got from Alaska, when I still lived there.

I think I have to try the salt method you recommend very soon, if this doesn't clear up... these fish are so hardy, I don't think it will hurt them, they've been through everything. What kind of salt can I use? Does it have to be aquarium specific, or can it be table salt?

[chefkeith]

Wow. You're up late or very early . I edited my earlier post a little to add a little caution to adding salt.
Table salt is ok. Canning & pickling salt would be better. Don't use aquarium salt or marine salt though.


reason for edit- can't spell caution.

[Icewall42]

Cation? How so? Amd yeah, I've been an insomniac for some time now. I was also worried about the salt, because I thought I heard somewhere that table salt is bad for fish, but if you've had experience with it... I'm guessing it's not lethal. This is ionized table salt? Like the Morton brand?