hey guys, well i'm wondering if my fish are suffering from velvet. Tank parameters are 300L planted tank moderate - heavy stocking, with gouramis, golden barbs, ruby barbs, neons, cardinals, bristlenoses, corys, blue rams and black mollies. All water parameters are normal, ammonia - nil, nitrite - nil, nitrate around 10 -20ppm. Water changes every 2 weeks.

So you may remember several months ago my golden barbs were scratching, i treated for ich even though i couldn't see any signs of it and monitored the pH which stabilised at around 6.8 - 7. Well the golden barbs still exhibit scratching (not compulsively but more than enough to make me suspicious) and i've seen the gouramis starting to do it as well.

Anyway i remmber alanmin telling me that to spot velvet shine a torch on the fish in the dark and see if it reflects. The mollies do seem to have gold specks that reflect, plus they also have yellow splotches over them clearly visible without the lights off. So two questions, does this look like velvet? And if not are the yellow markings on the mollies normal? Also what is the recommended treatment if it is velvet? If its not velvet i really can't think of any other reason that they would be scratching, no signs of parasites (i;ve treated with prazi previously to make sure) and no sign of whitespot.

The velvet doesn't reflect it just seems to show up better at night with a torch. That doesn't look like velvet to me.

ok thanks, the mollies have always had this colour, perhaps its normal colouration? can't really think of any reasons why some of the fish scratch but show no other signs of illness

If they are scratching they probably have a skin parasite of some sort or an irritation through water conditions. From your picture it doesn't look like velvet though.

really does look like velvet !!! whitish covering normally over the whole fish including fins, not spots or patches, the blotches on you fish look normal for mollies. A completely black fish will tend to lose colour because of the velvet coating, also a black fish would be the easiest fish to see it on, (in my humble opinion) In fish with velvet if they are still looking healthy otherwise there are no spots, no loose bits, no bleeding etc all of that sort of thing comes only when near death or dead, good luck

hmm will have to keep thinking, the mollies actually don't scratch, just the golden barbs and occasionally the gouramis (though i've just started to notice this). the barbs came in with the mollies from another tank i bought so i don't know their history. I guess if water parameters are fine and they don't show any other illness just leave it be?

Golden barbs are nutters, mine go berserk every now and then racing around for no apparent reason, do not be too fooled by them, a bit like clown loaches lying on their sides looking dead, maybe the barbs are just overexuberant