I saw two little white spots on the edge of my Ryunkin's tail just a little bit ago. I moved her to the hospital tank and all I had on hand was some Melafix so I put some in. Is this ich? What do I do now?? I'm very worried I don't know what to do. I'd really appreciate any ideas on what I should do.

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chances are it is ich, get any ick cure from the pet store, they are all pretty much the same, quICK cure always works for me, do the white spots look like grains of salt?

Sort of, they kind of look fuzzy. They are really small.

do i have to treat the whole tank, or just the fish with the spots?

You need to treat the main tank as well as the fish if it is ich, and it sounds like it is.

Have a look at the ich photo and description on here: Koko's Goldfish Diseases Page

Does this look like what your fish has?

There are 2 ways of treating ich:

1. Heat, salt and darkness. Heat the tank to 80F, salt it to a level of 3 tsps per gallon (adding 1 tsp per gallon every 12 hours, not all at once). Keep the hood light off and the tank covered with newspaper or a cloth. You should see an improvement within a few days but you should keep up the treatment for at least 7 days to ensure a complete cure.

2. Store-bought meds such as Rid-Ich or Quick-Cure. Regardless of what the label says, you'll probably need to repeat the treatment at least 2 or 3 times to ensure all the ich is gone.

NB: Melafix will not help; I would remove it.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Emma, it's hard to tell if what my fish has is what that fish has- because I only see two spots on mine and that fish is covered with them. I will probably try an over the counter med for Ich, although I hope it is ich that they have. I hope it doesn't hurt them to treat them for Ich if they happen to not have ich and it's something else.

If the spots look fuzzy it's probably not ich. I'd check the water params (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH) and make sure they were perfect, and if so salt the tank. It might be helpful if it's fungal or bacterial, and it would also help if it's ich. Salt is the least stressful, least toxic thing you could use, so if you're not sure what the spots are, I wouldn't suggest using a commercial ich med.