Red blotches appearing on Gold Ram

On saturday, everything seemed fine in my tank.
All fish, including the Ram were acting normally and eating well. Nothing was added to the tank on Saturday.

Sunday morning... the lights came on to show my male Gold Ram swimming like a corkscrew (i.e. going forward but spinning around an axis through his head and tail)
A large red blotch was clearly visible under his skin just in front of his tail fin.

After rummaging on Internet, I diagnosed an ulcer, and treated as such (20min bath in 10L tank water, with 5g salt (to replace mucus layer), 5ml Formaldehyde and 4 drops malachite green (to kill the infection and any parasites)

This seemd to work great and he perked right up when put back into the tank, and today, is swimming normally again and eating (and chasing the platies as he alwasys used to)

My problem is that there are more red marks on him today.

Please advise what these are, and how I can treat him.
The marks are mainly on one side (his right hand side), but are now appearing on his left.

GOLD RAM WITH RED MARKS ON RIGHT SIDE:



THE SAME RAM, BUT WITH JUST 2 TINY MARKS ON HIS LEFT SIDE:


My water conditions are:
Temp = 22 (now raised this to 26)
pH = 6.8
kH = 4.5dKH / GH = 140
Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Phosphate = 0.0

My CO2 level may have gone up to 47ppm at one point, incase that helps diagnose the issue?

Thanks for helping.

P.S. the marks are a deep red, almost purple, and look like they are under the skin. The two near his eye almost look cyclindrical; like something is inside him and you see one end near the skin? If they were on a person, I would think that either its a nasty bruise, or something red was under the skin.

Wow, I never saw this before, I hope you can cure it.
I cannot keep Rams alive, them and Angels for some reason.
(High ph I'm sure)

I'm not sure what it is either. Possibly bacterial. You should try and quarantine this fish in case it's contageous.

Cheers for the replies.

Unfortunately I cant QT this fish as its the only tank I have setup at the moment
I do have a small tank that I will setup for new arrivals and as a hospital tank, but it doesnt even have water in it yet (never mind a filter, heater, etc).

I have Preis Coly medication that I can mix with some food to maybe help fight the bacterial infection. I also have Seachem Focus which helps bind medications to food. Is that worth a course of?

Generally rams prefer higher temps. 26-30C, conditions similar to discus, i would say 22C was a bit \"cool\", could have been a factor.....

Its whirling diease or in latin Myzozoan

www.int-res.com/articles/dao2003/55/d055p031.pdf


this can be caused by stress if the environment is poor, antibiotics treatment followed by introduced to a tank that the bio filter is not damaged by antibiotics.

Thanks so much for the input guys, and F.JACK - that sounds exactly like it... except for the red blotches, which I cant see in any document about \"Whirling Disease\". Im now wondering whether that is connected, or is ANOTHER infection :sigh:

Whilring disease is also called \"Rams disease\" so I guess it makes sense.

Many sites talk about it being uncurable and having to cull ALL your stock becuase it is so contagious. They then go on to say that you have to sterlize your entire tank and start from scratch again!!??!!!

One site mentioned Quinine Sulfate as a possible help, but its a prescription only drug.
Does anyone know if this is even possible to get here?

photo of young salmon with blackish or purplish colour.(whirling disease)


Quinine sulphate in one of the ingredients in some of the sera brand fish meds, available from uk websites, antibiotics is the best cure, when you see redc bloches it always bacteria infection, one may never get a 100%ID of which strain.