External parasites on FW fish?

[Rahim101]

The best people to help are the guys at Gold Aquariams.

Shoot "Albert Dao" and Pm with the pics or a link to this thread...I'm sure he can help. Looks like fin rot to me.....

[Dale D]

Hard to tell by the pictures, but, could it be a fish louse?
I've seen alot of them on goldfish, but, they are usually more of a brown colour.
If it is a louse you should be able to remove it by scraping it off with a fingernail. That's what I have always done.

[Delphinus]

Well, it is brown, so maybe that's a possibility.

I added some Melafix to her tank tonight, we'll see what that does for her. (I guess she's a female BNP after all.) Didn't have time tonight to try catching her to see if I can flick it, whatever it is, off. Tomorrow maybe.

Have had a few suggestions that maybe it's either fungal, or maybe some kind of secondary thing from having the loaches pick on her. I'm disappointed if that's the case, I've never known my loaches to be mean and I really want to hang onto them, but if they're gonna cause me problems then I don't know what. I got a better look at her tail tonight though, she was flaring it open and it's not as bad as I first thought. It is definitely a little ragged on the edge, I can't really tell if it's fin rot or chew marks. Man I hope it's not chew marks..

[Delphinus]

Wait a minute. I just noticed something on my own pictures that I didn't clue into before. The first photo is of her right hand side, the second and third photos are off her left hand side. This brown dot is thus a through-and-through on her tail (ie. on both sides). Does that rule out the possibility of a parasite such as a louse?

[fishoholic]

To me it looks like a scrape/cut of some sort. If this is the case the melafix will help heal the tail in about a week. It sort of looks like she got her tail caught or stuck on something and ended up hurting herself pulling free. I can't say for sure but I hope the melafix works for you, it has helped my FW fish in the past.