A few days ago I noticed something a little odd about one of the "nose flaps" (I have no idea what it's properly called) on my black moor. It was sticking up and I could see what looked like a little white under it. Now, about four days later, there is definitely a little fuzzy white bit there and now on the other side of the flap. It looks like ich to me, but it hasn't spread and the other fish seems clear. I put some melafix in yesterday, but I'm wondering if I should treat with Rid-ich or wait and see if it spreads. I hate to medicate if I don't have to but I also don't want it to get worse . . .

Stats and info:
-18 gallon, 2 fish
-No ammonia or nitrites; ~20 ppm nitrate
-Doing 15% water changes every other day to bring them down
-Carrot (the fish in question) had a pretty bad scape injury about 6 weeks ago then was moved into a larger tank about a month ago, so he's had some stress recently
-He's eating and acting fine

Thanks for any advice!

hi

i wouldnt go treating him for anything yet.

for one, ich looks like individual grains of salt on the end of very small hairs. they will quickly infest a fish once one gets a foothold. this sounds nothing like what your describing.

instead, could you just be seeing another part of his nostrils anatomy? theres more than one flap per nostril and some nostrils have much more to them than others.

just to be sure, could you describe the white fuzzy bit a little better?

Toothless, I'm not sure it's ich either--the one time I had ich in my tank it spread much more quickly.

A better description: well, it looks almost like there's a bit of cream cheese on either side of one nose flap. The other side has no trace of this. I said it was "fuzzy" in the first post, but I went and looked again and now I'm not so sure. The bits are small--smaller than a grain of rice.

is this "cream cheese" somewhat clearish or just somewhat opaque? is it only on the nostril flap? ive found that from time to time, our goldies will have areas (especially membranous tissues like fins and interior gill flap and nostrils) of ther body where their slime coat will thicken up a tad. as long as it is minute, and doesnt ever progress, these things are somewhat normal.

anyway, i would keep a close eye on it for a few days and if theres no progression, its probably something like i described.

keep us updated.

Sounds like a plan. I hope it is just slime coat--I've been using Nitromax with water changes which I think is supposed to encourage that. 'Course I don't want the poor guy in a slime cocoon!

I'll keep an eye on him. Thanks for the help!