CB, Raven and Lucille
The breeding stars or breeding tubercles are little white bumps on the gill covers and on the leading edges of the pectoral fins. Bumps anywhere else on the fish need to be diagnosed.
The glitter look… what color is it?… could just be the natural reflection of a healthy fish or worse case, it could be the start of another sickness called Velvet - Description - Powder-like white, grey or gold dusting on surface of fish (finer than ich, more similar to the consistency of talc) from Pandora’s Fish Disease page - http://preview.tinyurl.com/2m83ee and more reading here http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/docs/health/othprotist.shtml and here http://www.fishvet.com/Oodinium.pdf and this long case history with lots of pics.. http://dataguru.org/misc/aquarium/BugsyCostia0503.html (while Dataguru is very well read and knowledgeable, she and some of the fellow goldfish keepers at thegab.org have lots of fish health problems because they insist on promoting 10G per goldfish in her GAB forums… so those forums are a very good place to read and learn about goldfish from others mistakes… and what not to do.)
Normally, the fish would appear sick with clamped fins, flashing/scratching on surfaces in the tank, etc. The salt treatment you did would/should have also taken care of any Ich or Velvet as well so I’m leaning against it being Velvet. Have you been looking at pictures of healthy goldfish to see if you see this same “look”? With all the problems that you’ve had, for a while, you will be predisposed to think normal things might be a problem. It’s a natural reaction.
Now… for your test results… Which brand kit do you have? You are showing levels of ammonia and nitrite in the 0.1 ppm range which is not a typical level reported by most test kits that I’ve used… or are you kind of guessing them numbers based on the color range between 0.0ppm and 0.25ppm? I also want to make sure that your test kit actually tests that low and that you didn’t misplace the decimal point. Normally, we don’t worry about levels below 0.25 in a tank that is still cycling…. although yours should be darn close to being completed.
Since you are showing ammonia in your 48 hour tap water baseline tests, it likely means that you do have chloramine treated tap water. Your Prime will handle that with no problems and once your tank’s nitrogen cycle is fully established, any dechlor will be OK.
Lenny Vasbinder Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com (Links to any articles referenced in above reply are listed on the right side, alphabetically under Labels and also under Archives by Year, Month)
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
