fungus

Question
Good day!

i bought a healthy flowerhorn 2 weeks ago. my aquaruim had a gold fishes before but i noticed that they had a white things like hairdandruff sticked on thier body. all my goldfishes died except one. so what i did was i cleaned the aquarium and put the flowerhorn and the other fish together since the flowerhorn was only young. after 2days the other fish died and after two weeks my flower horn acted diffently like he stayed on one corner of the aquirum and never eats. he had a white things on his body and became web-like all over his body. my flower horn died. sad. what happened to all my fishhes?i always put anti fungi recommended by the petshop owner. what is the white things on my fishes?is that fungi?

thanks,

shine

Answer
Hi Shine,

It's Ich.  The dandruff-like flecks are a parasite called Ich, and they kill the fish.

Before you get more fish, you have to dismantle your tank and clean it thoroughly.

I feel so bad for you.  I've experienced an Ich breakout before and it is so hard to deal with unless you can recognize it right away.

The medication you got is also useless.  Fungus medication doesn't work on parasites. You have to use a product for Ich...also sold for Ick.  The correct spelling is, Ich, not Ick, but they sell it spelled like that nowdays so people recognize it, because both pronunciations are identical.

Back to the fish - Either clean the tank thoroughly, or let it remain fishless for one month.  After a couple weeks, the parasites die from not having someone to chew on.  When the fish are gone, the parasites starve to death.  I leave it a month just to be certain they died.

Happy fish-keeping Shine and I hope your next fish adventure lasts longer.

Renee