Illness/Sickness: Fungus?

This morning I noticed a small spot of what appears to be fungus on one of my Axies. Its only small, on one of her gills. Shes showing no signs of stress, last night it wasn't there and she was eating. Shes still moving around as normal. There is nothing on my other Axie. My tank has been cycled and i do water changes every other week. Is there anythign else it could be? Already warned my mom I may be needing some fridge space. If it is fungus how do I do salt baths? I've reaad lots of different things about them. How much salt etc?

A bit of an update, just tested the water and somehow my ammonias risen to 2. Filters been cleaned, tanks been spot cleaned and the waters been changed. Nitrite is still at zero. Everything else is as it should be too. Could this be the reason for fungus? With the stress she had last week when i took the divider down in her tank. How can i lower the ammonia quickly? I just did a 10% change.

By doing 20%-50% changes, I'd say. There's also some products on the market such as Ammolock - don't know how trustworthy they are though, sorry.

Hi Aimee,

You're just in at the start of a cycle, that's all. You need to change at least 20% of the water every day. Continue doing so until ammonia is 0, nitrite is 0, and you show a nitrate reading. Then your cycle will be complete.

Info on salt baths is available here:
http://www.caudata.org/cc/articles/salt.shtml

Good luck to you - and don't panic! This has happened to a lot of us at the start.

-Eva

Thats the thing, I've had my tank set up for months and it was cycled, had all been reading zero for months with the nitrate around 20. That's why I can't understand this sudden spike in the ammonia. No fungus on my other axie, and they both seem really healthy other than that. I've got her in my garage at the minute which is around 13C as there wasn't enough space in the fridge. I'm wondering if it is actually fungus as half of it has disappeared, or if it's just where the other ones bitten some of her gill off. It's too small to get a pictrue of, but it doesnt really look that fluffy now, its like a white patch on the stem bit of the gill, really hard to see it now. Should i hold off on the salt bath until I'm sure what it is?

After a night in a cold dark place alone, I checked on Squishy. She wasn't moving. I touched her and still nothing. My mom took the tub off me and took it into the kitchen so she could look at her better and she started moving. Is it normal to play dead? She was completely covered in poo. I cleaned her off as best i could and decided to put her back in her tank as I was late for work and didn't have time to change the water in the tub. The spot i though was fungus is now a brown colour. I'm wondering whether this could just be poo stuck to it, I've used a turkey baster to both to try to suck it off her gill and spray water at it. It wont budge. Left it for a few horus and it's still there. It doesn't look much like fungus under it now, wondering if its justs dead skin where her gill could have been nipped off. Would this cause a white patch in the pink gills? She's leucistic if that helps. I may have found the cause of the ammonia, lifted out an ornament and underneath was full of waste. God knows how its got there, but it's now all gone. Ammonias now down to 1.2 after a water change. Would fungus look really fluffy because this doesn't. It's just like a few of the feathery bits have gone white at the top of one of the stem things, which is quite a bit shorter than the other gills the last few days. Sorry for the essay!

hey aimee,

out of interest do u mean like a white film wen ur talking about this phantom fungus? if so salt water baths are the best cure, well in my opinion it work best

no idea how helpful that was

diz

It looked like mould, that's the only way I can describe it. Whatever it was, it fell off during Sunday night and was on the bottom of the tank. She seems fine now, although she's not very happy with me. Darts around the tank when I go near it and hides. She has just developed the dark toes the last few days though, so I'm putting her behaviour down to being an awkward teenager, or the ammonia problem I'm still battling.

Return of the mysterious white blob! Been doing 20% water changes all week, returned from work this afternoon to find another blob of white stuff on the top of Squishys gill. Did a 50% water change, ammonias now down to 0.6, getting there slowly. Nitrite is at zero, nitrate is at 10. It doesn't look much like fungus, I'll try and dig the camera out to get a picture. The gill is bent near the end, and thats where this blob is. Does this happen when they get bitten? Do the damaged cells turn white?