I was afraid that goldfish in my pond had Ich because I was seeing white spots that looked like grains of sugar on their cheeks and fins on several of them.
I was researching how to treat ich in my 3000 gallon pond and if it would kill snails or fish, or if I could just let the fish immune system fight it off.
It was only after reading quite a bit on ich that I came across a reddit post about breeding tubercles, also called "breeding stars" or "spawning stars" or "spawning tubercles" in male goldfish.
**BINGO** That is what my male fish have.
Most sources point to ick as the cause of any small white spots on goldfish and rec treatment, and do not mention that it can be a normal healthy appearance in reproducing male goldfish when spawning.
I wanted to post it here since I had never heard of this and I have been an active reader on this site for a few years now.
Yes there are some old posts here on breeding tubercles/stars, but I had not noticed when they were posted and did not know what to look up other than ich.
Breeding stars are uniform and only on male's cheeks/gill area/fins, and the fish are frisky, not sick acting.
Many of the ick treatments reportedly kill snails and the more heavily infested fish. So I was very glad not to have to do any treatment.
Anyone else notice these on their fish?
I was researching how to treat ich in my 3000 gallon pond and if it would kill snails or fish, or if I could just let the fish immune system fight it off.
It was only after reading quite a bit on ich that I came across a reddit post about breeding tubercles, also called "breeding stars" or "spawning stars" or "spawning tubercles" in male goldfish.
**BINGO** That is what my male fish have.
Most sources point to ick as the cause of any small white spots on goldfish and rec treatment, and do not mention that it can be a normal healthy appearance in reproducing male goldfish when spawning.
I wanted to post it here since I had never heard of this and I have been an active reader on this site for a few years now.
Yes there are some old posts here on breeding tubercles/stars, but I had not noticed when they were posted and did not know what to look up other than ich.
Breeding stars are uniform and only on male's cheeks/gill area/fins, and the fish are frisky, not sick acting.
Many of the ick treatments reportedly kill snails and the more heavily infested fish. So I was very glad not to have to do any treatment.
Anyone else notice these on their fish?
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