CichlidFish.com - Fish That Think.

I've heard that fish can get parasites but I don't know what they look like.  Today I noticed that within a matter of days, there was so much gunk in the tank so I gave everything a good scrub.  However, when I took out the cave that one of the fish hides in, I noticed there were clear-ish white bubbles all over the inside of the cave.  My first thought was that they were eggs, but don't fish not lay eggs on things like a wall?  And then I thought parasites but I don't know how to take care of that.  Any help would be great!

Hi again!  I don't know if what you found was eggs, but some fish do indeed place their eggs on the side of a rock, or wall, or whatever.  I would bet however, that those bubbles were not parasites. 

I took a picture of them but I have no idea how to post it on this.  Any ideas?

Best way for me is to go to one of the services like Photobucket.com, that will host your pictures.  Upload your picture to their server, then copy the IMG code that their service will assign, and past that code right into your post.  Then its there for you to use whenever.  The basic service involves no fee.  Theat's how my Avatar (striped fish in the above right is being posted.

These pics might be hard to see but they were the best ones I could take


This is Monster
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These are some pics of the "eggs" on the cave wall.  They're kinda hard to make out.
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wow I have no idea why they're so big.  but I tried 

Sorry I can't tell what that is.

here's a few of your pictures resized though,maybe someone can tell.

Really small air bubbles are always flowing around a tank. there's always oxygen in the water yada yada yada....Under that thingy it looks like they are getting trapped by the rock surface. they'll start to accumulate and become more visible and eventually get big enough to escape or when the O2 drops in the water they'll be re-absorbed.

There are parasites that fish can get. the biggest one is Fish lice. Itty bitty black dots that can be spotted easiest on tails and fins as that's where they tend to be on the body. Other parasites can be gill flukes, indicated by quicker respiration and lethargic behaviour. hard to identity unless you enjoy doing autopsy. Even with a microscope and a lot of patience I find it very hard. Sometimes you can get leeches as well. But don't be alarmed by every bug you find in your fish tank. They only need attention if they are parasitic which means they feed off another fish or it's byproducts at the detriment to the fish's health.

But really they are pretty rare and for an outbreak to occur an infested fish or plant has to be introduced to the tank...which is why 2 weeks of quarantine makes everyone happy chappies!!!!

Love from Aus, Kate!