Bait minnow's sclaes turning white?

**Manafel** · 02-29-2012, 10:44 AM

Here I am again, asking advice for a friend's tank >.< Lately his bait minnow has been a pain. about 5 days ago the scales on his back have turned white in a patch, it's not fuzzy, and it hasnt been getting better. I keep nagging him to do water changes, but after 8 months of nagging I finally gave up. I don't know the water parameters yet, I'll find out later tonight. Here is a pic though. Any ideas on what it could be? He's acting fine as far as I know. the tank has had the same residents for years and hasn't had any new additions. The only thing that has changed is that he changed out the substrate.

**Manafel** · 03-02-2012, 8:00 AM

Bump?

**mykidsmylife** · 03-02-2012, 10:03 AM

Did you get the water params? I gather from your earlier post that water quality is a huge issue with his tank. Is there any fuzziness to the area, around the mouth?

It looks much like the "saddleback" type lesions associated with columnaris. Which is not good. Poor water quality is a leading factor. Look it up. HIGHLY contagious. YIKES.

**Manafel** · 03-02-2012, 10:45 AM

I haven't gotten to it, I should get to it by tonight though, I forgot my test kit last time. Right now it's about a 25 gallon and he has 2 goldfish(I think one common and one comet?) in with the minnow.(I know thats WAY too small for even those because they are fully grown now) The water gets cloudier every day I see it(I'm about to shove him out of the way and clean the tank myself) he said he was going to do it yesterday, but we will see. Last time I tested his water, the Ph was extremely low when it comes out at about 7.8 from the tap, it read about 4.5(Yikes!)

**mykidsmylife** · 03-02-2012, 11:00 AM

Yikes. With it being that bad it will have to be small frequent water changes so as no to shock the fish. Deep gravel cleaning. I imagine the nitrates are through the roof.

If you do clean it do NOT use your equipment and wash your hands/arms thoroughly so as not to cross contaminate your tanks.

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**Manafel** · 03-02-2012, 11:19 AM

I gave him his own equipment to do it, but I forgot to answeryouq question, but no, There is no fuzziness nywhere on the fish, he seems to have some kind of growth on his mouth though(It'sbeen there for a very long time now) and the minnow seems to be the only one thats sick right now. I'll be sure to do small water changes and I'll get the water params tonight(I'm kind of dreading it)

**Manafel** · 03-02-2012, 11:03 PM

Ph- 7.0
Ammo- 0
Nitrite- 0
Nitrate- 80
He's doing a partial water change as I write this.

**mykidsmylife** · 03-02-2012, 11:08 PM

The nitrates are really high. PH is better than I expected. Do you know what the PH is out of the tap? How does the minnow look? Is the problem with his mouth kinda look ragged or a but fuzzy? Any fuzziness to the white on his back? I'm still suspecting columnaris.

**Manafel** · 03-02-2012, 11:23 PM

Ph out of the tap is about 8 here. The Minnow looks better I guess, the white spot seems to be dissappating, we just did 20% change and he changed his filter media(the water wasnt even running through well.) I scraped a lot of algae off the sides of the tank. The cloudiness is better, ill try to get another picture. It's mouth looks a little like its back does, but the bump has been there for at least a month or two :/