# White cottony fungus (saprolegnia?)



## Frogprincess (Jul 8, 2011)

About two days ago, I diagnosed one of my female mollies with pop-eye. Since I learned that this is often indicative of an inner infection, I quarantined her in a 2-gallon tank to keep an eye on her, while I also checked up on the other fish in her tank. When I got home from work the next day (yesterday), her eyes had gone back to normal, but she was swimming with her fins clamped in tightly, and she had a white cottony growth in tiny spots all over her body. 
When I looked in on my other fish (who had been fine the day before!) most of them were all sitting near the bottom with their fins clamped, and half of them had the white fungal growth. I checked their water quality, since I've been told that it's most often stress or bad water conditions that lead to this kind of growth. The nitrates are a little higher than normal, but still well within the safe zone, and everything else came up normal. Their water temperature is a little low, around 73*F, until I can get a good heater (my old one is designed for a 5gal tank and isn't heating the water enough) later today. 
Anyway, I did a 40% water change and added 2% salt yesterday. Today I did a 20% with the same salt, and they seem a little more active but still very sluggish and they won't come to the surface to eat as readily as they used to.

Is there something besides water conditions that could be causing this infection? What should I use to treat it?


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## cossie (Dec 19, 2010)

give it time if they look a bit better after 1 day then that normally means leave it 3 or 4 days and they should be fine


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## emc7 (Jul 23, 2005)

Water conditions trigger infections by stressing the fish, but infectious agents such as virus, bacteria, or fungus actually cause the problem. Once they get established on a fish, they multiple rapidly. Improving the water conditions can be enough to allow the fish to fight off the infection, but often you need to treat, too. 

Identifying the disease is key, because the wrong med won't do any good and all. Look at photos and make your best guess.

I might try something like Quickcure (malachite green & formalin which should work against fungus or ich) first because it is cheap, available and easy (1 drop per gallon) to use.


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## Betta man (Mar 25, 2011)

malachite green. Maybe try methlyn blue.


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