Hi everyone. I haven't been around for awhile, everyone in the tank is doing well-- however, recently my snail died (my fault-- I added a water clarifier that took the calcium out of the water and possibly had copper in it) and in that time my dojo loach (who hides on the bottom for most of the time) developed a white, tufty, cotton-ball on his tail fin.

I checked the water and the Nitrates were at 100, the Nitrites and Ammonia were 0, but I presume that without the snail munching on some of that mulm on the bottom that the bottom of the tank may have had quite different levels.

None of the other fish are affected, and in fact Don Juan is active, eating and responsive. I did a major water change over two days, vacuumed up and got the Nitrates down to 10. Then I added salt to a 3% solution (1 tbsp for every 5 gallons-- I have 25gallons of water in a 29 gallon tank).

This morning the fungus is gone. His fin is damaged, but evenly (I read that jagged damage is bacterial and even damage is fungus). But I also read that there are parasites that may appear as fungus...

My question is this: can fungus be treated by a major water change and some salt? (and a little bit of brine shrimp for the infected fish, which is the only other thing I've done as yet) Or was this definitely a parasite because of it's response to the salt?

He seems to be doing well, and I want to decide if I should medicate the tank (methylene blue and such) for fungus or parasites-- and I'm also wondering if I should medicate the tank at all since Don Juan seems no longer to be infected and the other fish are doing well.

thanks.

oh, other fish are bubbleye at 2.5 inches, blue oranda at 3.5 inches, three white cloud minnows, and Don Juan, the dojo loach at about 5.5 inches in length.

salt dips and adding salt to the water usually does the trick for fungus. glad it worked. it might take a couple of weeks for the damaged fin to grow back but when it does it will be good as new.

Thanks, Blinky, for responding. I've been checking on him about every hour or so (just a little paranoid-- this fungus thing seemed to happen very quickly) and he seems to be doing well, and everyone in the tank also seem to be doing well.

All I can say is, Yay for Salt!!!

Now I'm going to hang around and catch up on some posts.

--Sarah

Glad to see you back, Sarah!! And Don Juan doing good after the salt. Its strange, I always thought dojos and salt don't mix too well together.....
BTW, I hope you meant 0.3%, not 3% salt. 1 tbsp per 5 gl = 0.3%....
Those dojos are something else, aren't they?

Hey Ranchugirl!

Yeah, I really love Don Juan.

And I did mean 0.3% ( )

Do dojos and salt not mix well together? Should I be concerned? He seems fine, though he's definitely hiding a lot-- hard to tell if it's more than normal.

thanks.

--Sarah