I posted eariler that my willte oranda flash had a white dot on his wen. I learned it meant hes growing. Well it went away and now theres like 8 or more. some of em are very high off the skin and one or 2 of em has a white string comming off of it. its very short and thin. I dont think its an anchor worm. These are only on his wen so im pretty sure its not ick because everyone else would have it. The water has pretty much been the same for a few weeks. Everything fine except the nitrite which, no matter how much i try, will not go down. I cant tell ya the exact levels as i ran out of test strips. but please help. I wub him so much.


EDIT: he's acting the same as usual though.

Oh yeah, sushi has like, 2 or 3 in some areas thier not as noticable as flash's though.

Sounds like an anchor worm to me. Im not knowledgable on them but id treat the whole tank with parasite meds of some sort. Sorry to of not been much help.

What kind of medicine? Is there a brand that you would reccomend?

EDIT: the string things went away. I think it was like that because they were like comming off or something? is that possible? Oh... im so screwd! I cant get to the store untill tommrow. what causes it? Is it fatal? I would look in my book but i lost it.

From a website:
Anchor Worm (Lernaea)

Symptoms: The fish scrapes itself against objects, whitish-green threads hang out of the fish's skin with an inflamed area at the point of attachment.

Anchor worms are actually crustaceans. The young are free swimming and borrow into the skin, go into the muscles and develop for several months before showing. They release eggs and die. The holes left behind are ugly and may become infected.
The anchor worm is too deeply imbedded to safely remove. Treatment can best be done with a 10 to 30 minute bath in 10 mg per liter of potassium permanganate. Or treat the whole tank with 2 mg per liter, but this method is messy and dyes the water.

Sorry, not much help. I'll look some more.

The only symptom is the threasd but the threads were sorta, not strait, like the end was curled under. Im not saying your wrong, just i want to be 100% sure before i treat it for something. No offence, but i hope your wrong.... poor flashie...

That's okay. Hmm. I don't know what else I can do . I'll try looking around.

Im going to belts tommrow so i will get something there.

some of them are shrinking. Is that a good sighn?

I sorry to disagree but I do not think you are describing anchor worm.

I believe it to be more fungal in nature. I would try treating for fungus. Jungle Labs makes a great fungal medication for fungus called fungus eliminator.

How are the params of the tank? This will be important while treating the fish.

Every things fine except the nitrites. I cant tell exactly because im out of test strips. I need some chemicals to lower nitrites. I looked at picks of anchor worm and the inflamed area was red. The area is white on my fishy. Thanks for the help!

If the area is white with a fungus like see-thru thread trailing behind(mostly around the mouth,ventral fins) then it is Columnaris which is not a true infection but i think you can cure it with a 3-day salt bath of 1.5-3% concentration then wait aday if it gets better stop salt bathing

I bought some fungus away stuff from the LFS. It turned the water green, its suppose to. Flash is doing better now.

Im glad to hear Flash is better now

Sometimes you shouldn't rush out to buy all that meds because it will make your goldfish more sick, you should use salt first

I did. Most of the dots are shrinking. there mostly gone. The treatment is over with but will it come back or should i add more salt?

You should continue the salt treatment a full week past seeing any white stuff. This is to be safe it is all gone.

I am glad he is better too.