Red Zebra with black spots

[BigBP]

Hello all. I am at a loss right now on how to treat my Red Zebra who has black spots that keep on spreading. She hasn't been acting any different than if she were healthy. No rubbing against rocks, no quick movements about the tank, eats normal, etc.... None of my other fish have the spots at the moment.
I spoke with my LFS about the spots and they weren't too sure. The only thing they could come up with is that it is possibly flukes. They gave me Clout to treat her with. I treated her in a quarantined tank for 48hrs and it only got worse. Since then I have placed him back in my tank.
I returned to the LFS with my results and they gave me some other medication. I believe it was called Formalin. I am at work right now and am unable to look at it. I have been treating the whole tank with this product for the last few days. I took out the carbon filters and put in some without it. I do about 25% water change each treatment as the instructions state on the bottle. I am still not seeing an improvement. Am I expecting results too soon? Am I using the right treatment? What exactly is it she has?
The attachments are some pictures I took. Not the best quality. I had to edit the brightness and contrast of each picture so the spots would really show up.
Thanks for your help.

 

[~*LuvMyKribs*~]

Its extremely hard to tell by the picture, but IMO it could be 3 things.

1- Flukes or something like you said. Some sort of parasitic infection, but i would say this is the least likely of all. I would get a book on fish diseases and see if there is anything in there that resembles it. I have one but i couldnt seem to see anything similar.

2- Part of thier natural coloration. Africans sometimes get darker spots on them that are there naturally, and they can either intensify the coloration of these blotches or make them almost dissapear. Not all fish have them, but some do. Often they show up around the mouth and on the gill plate... my male yellow lab has these dark markings.

3- OB pattern. Some cichilds, and often zebras, are a color morph what you call "OB", or Orange Blotch. It means they are 'calico' or spotted with dark spots that are brown, blue, yellow, or a variety of colors in between.

Heres a few pictures of zebras with a OB pattern that resembles the spots on your fish.

So do the spots resemble anything like that? Do they look they are part of the fish's color pattern or look like they are something ON the scales of the fish?


HTH
-Diana

 

[BigBP]

That first picture looks darn close. It's so hard to tell though. The spots look so fine on it. It's possible that it's OB. I'm doing research on that now to see all the variations. I'm hoping it's that and I've been overreacting. I will keep you posted on what I do find out though. Thanks for your help Diana.