white balls on catfish

[Mushroomman]

both of my albino channel cats have what seems to be little white balls attached to the base of their fins. my suspicion is its ich, but i never saw ich in little balls. i did reaserch on the internet and havent found anything on the topic. has anyone seen this before and can anyone tell me what it is and how to treat it, please?

 

[trouthead]

how large are these? ich usually looks like salt granules.

 

[Mushroomman]

ya actually they are about the size of a grain of salt or a little smaller than a pinhead

so it is ich, as i expected?

 

[fishdude07]

could be external parasites...i had a problem with a female guppy, cory, and betta...the female guppy died, but the cory and betta were fine after i treated them with medicine that treated stuff like external parasites and other stuff. the female guppy had a big ball in one of her gills that actually made her gill stick out at a 90 degree angle from the side of her face...the cory and betta had little balls on the tips of their fins. i never found any information on what my fish had...and it didnt look anything like ich to me. do the balls on your catfish look "fuzzy"? can you take a picture of them?

oh, and dont throw out the idea that it could be ich...thats still a possibility

 

[Fishery]

Hi Mushrooman.

This site here might be able to assist you in IDing your problem, and to remedy it.

http://www.fishpalace.org/Disease.html

It has pictures of various diseases aswell.

 

[Lotus]

If the balls are in any way fuzzy, then it's not ich, but a bacterial or fungal infection. Are you sure they're not just part of the fish? I remember once one of my loaches had a little scrape on his nose, where a scale/skin had been damaged and I thought it was a disease at first look.

 

[Mushroomman]

they are not fuzzy, and they are attatched to the fin, near the base where it meets the body. it doesnt seem to be part of the fish, therer are several of them.

it could be parasites, but im gonna go ahead and treat it as if it were ich, then if its not cleared up ill try something else.

thanks all