How easy is it to see ICH and can it be confused with air bubbles?

T

TeaPea

AC Members
Aug 26, 2002
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Brightwaters, NY
I feel silly asking this. As I posted last night, I bought 2 pearl Gourami's and noticed a few hours after putting them in my tank that they had Ich. I'm about to return them to the LFS store and to be honest, it's really hard to tell if they really had ich or not. Well, one is dead (he jumped out of the bucket overnight)and he's hard as a rock now :( but the live one, I put him in a bag and it's hard to tell if it's really ich or just air bubbles in his fins.

I've dealt with ich before and got rid of it succesfully so I know what it looks like. But now my mind is playing tricks on me. Could air bubbles really get trapped in their fins anyway? :o

Thanks.

Oh, BTW, just wondering if anyone knows why the last time I posted (several months ago) I had over 100 posts now it's only shows only 20 something...Weird.
 
You should be able to tell just by the way they were acting. Air bubbles should go away in few hours, they get stuck on fishes slime coat. But ich is a whole new ball game. My guess is ich. Fish under alot of stress are prone to get it.
 
The pearl Gouramis do like to jump so you need something to cover them up. When I got my pearl gouramis, it jumped out of the container twice before I put him in the tank. You need to keep an eye on those guys.

However, nowhere I've seen describe them to be active jumper though.
 
Yes they are quite the jumpers, I only filled the bucket up halfway and they both jumped out, I found them in time and put them both back in and placed a large book over the bucket but in the morning one of them had somehow squeezed out of the slit between the book and the bucket and he was dead on the floor!

Back to the ich, my husband said since my whole tank was already exposed to the ich and I'll have to treat it anyway that I should've just left the ichy fish in there. I say I paid for a healthy fish and should get my money back. Anyone have an opinion on this? Also, lucky me, my lfs is closed on Monday's so now I have the one remaining gourami in my 10 gallon that I just dug out of the basement...there's no filter in it or anything, just declore'd the water. I feel so bad for him. And his fins are full of air bubbles right now I still can't tell if he really has ich or not. I know he did but for some reason I like torturing myself by second guessing what I saw :(
 
Ich is white, air is clear. I'm not trying to be sarcastic either. Your husband has a point since, when you can see ich, it is close to dropping off the fish and one mature "cyst" in your tank means the tank is infested. On the other hand, it is possible that the other fish will not become infected, unlikely, but possible, so it can't hurt (unless it dies) to leave the pearl out of the main tank. I'm with you that if the fish was purchased sick, they should take them back. Sometimes they wrap them so fast it almost seems like they don't want you to see the fish b4 you take it home! I always stand there and check them over after they bag them. It feels a little weird 'cuz you're not trusting the person who bagged the fish for you, but it has to be done. Good luck!
 
i wouldnt take any risk, and treat them for ich all the same...at the end of the day it is better to be safe than sorry. ich can be caused by stress...and the fact that one of your fish jumped out of the bucket suggests that they were stressed. the jumping could also be because of lack of oxygen...and if you are seeing air bubbles, then it suggests that the dissolved oxygen in the water if very low.

i hope this helps in any way.
 
thom336- I wanted to clarify this b4 someone else jumps on your back...I dislike confrontation! And it seems like you've been jumped on a bit lately.
Ich can be brought on by stress, it is caused by an infestation of a parasite. I know what you meant, but others may not so I thought I would clarify. ;)

Air bubbles = low oxygen ???? Can you explain that? I've never heard that b4.

:confused:
 
thanks for that beviking. maybe i dont ecplain myself very well...what i was getting as was that fish under stress are more suseptible to the parasites due to a weakened immune system.

as for those air bubbles...oxygen in the water is measured in dissolved oxygen, and if the oxygen is in the form of bubbles, then it is not dissolved into the water, and this can be brought on by an increase in temperature, where less oxygen is able to be dissolved, but there are many other explanations for oxygen not being dissolved at the standard rate, such as depth of water, and medications can also deplete the water of oxygen. so i would suggest the addition of an airline before temp is raised or medication added to treat this ich. the hard metals found in tap water can also deplete oxygen in the aquarium - if you look just after a water change into your aquarium, you should see air bubbles on the sides of the glass and ornatments and/or plants.
 
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