Seeking confirmation that these white spots are Ich...

[mcluva]

Some of my fish have a group of white spots on each side of their face. Other than that they appear happy and healthy.

 

[Stephen Noble]

I can't see them. Are they tiny...salt grain size or larger pimples? And, are the white spots only on the side of the head and gills and not on the fins or other parts of the body?

 

[mcluva]

I can't see them. Are they tiny...salt grain size or larger pimples? And, are the white spots only on the side of the head and gills and not on the fins or other parts of the body?

They appear to be only on the side of the head and the very front of the fin closest to the head is a little white also.

In the picture above, they're on the black fish's head and yes, they look like grains of salt.

 

[mcluva]

Is this picture any better? Once again, looking at the black fish. It's the most obvious on the black ones, but not all of them have it.

 

[JamieB]

Do you see any elsewhere on the body? On male koi/ goldfish, they develop breeding bumps on the gill covers face area. Are they rubbing against stuff or pushing other fish around/ chasing? Catch one in a large net and take a look. If it’s breeding bumps, your good, think of it as seasonal puberty! Like how teenage boys start to get wiskers!
I’ve got ick in my aquarium now, I’ll see if I can get a good picture to show you the difference.

 

[JamieB]

That was a feat to capture one! Look on the body just behind the head. This guppy has whiteish spots almost looks like she has a lot of small injuries.

 

[mcluva]

Do you see any elsewhere on the body? On male koi/ goldfish, they develop breeding bumps on the gill covers face area. Are they rubbing against stuff or pushing other fish around/ chasing? Catch one in a large net and take a look. If it’s breeding bumps, your good, think of it as seasonal puberty! Like how teenage boys start to get wiskers!
I’ve got ick in my aquarium now, I’ll see if I can get a good picture to show you the difference.

No, there's nothing else on the body, and the fish seem very happy, swimming and eating normally. So perhaps they are breeding bumps. This is a pond I inherited when I bought my house, so I really don't know a great deal about fish. I have noticed some pretty intense chasing behaviour going on.

So hopefully we're in the clear.

 

[mcluva]

Yep, just googled them and breeding bumps is exactly what they look like. That's a relief!

 

[Lisak1]

That's a relief!

Until you have to support all those offspring!

 

[JamieB]

You’ll end up with tons of babies. Best advice I can give you is if you can’t support all of them, ie have enough pond space, let nature cull them till they are about three inches long. Then set up totes, air stones, kiddie pools, etc, and get in there with a net. Pool net works good! Sort the babies based on what type, koi or goldfish, color patterns, etc. if you’ve just got koi, sort them by color and if they are good quality for a decorative pond or not, you might be able to sell some like on Craigslist. I sort my goldfish excess by pond quality or bait quality, and color and fin type. For pond quality, I keep only the prettiest, long fins, no bent spines, and so on. I offer them to folks looking for pond fish. The bait quality go to folks looking to go fishing or in need of some fish for keeping bugs down in stock tanks, those I just give away. Nature will cull most, and that’s a good thing, as only the strongest genetically will survive.

 

[mrsclem]

Best advice, stop any feeding you ha e been doing!

 

[mcluva]

wow thanks for your advice guys.

There's only about 20 fish in the pond which is about 4000 litres. Used to be more but a naughty heron was having breakfast and dinner here for a little while. That problem has been sorted out with a net from dusk til dawn.

There were some eggs among one of the plants, but they've disappeared. They developed a mould like appearance. Is that normal?

 

[JamieB]

Sound like they either devolved a bacterial film, fungal, or just didn’t make it. Check your water quality, up your filtration, biological filters.