Tricky to see isn't he, little wiggler! I'd guess it's just a little skin infection from being out of the water. I'd try some melafix and pimafix and see if that does the trick If you want something a bit stronger see if your chemist has betadine - it's a topical povidone iodine treatment, you just dab a little on with a cotton bud.

Little dope went buoyant after his pea this evening... looks like he's not quite sorted yet

Should I use Melafix AND Pimafix together for his back? Or just one of the two?

Managed to get some pictures (30 attempts, thank god for digital cameras). Not perfect, but probably better than the video.

First shows the white patch more:

http://img517.imageshack.us/img517/3905/chubback.jpg

Second is a better view of the darker spots (with Flump trying to help his brother, it seems)

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/1002/chubback2.jpg

He really doesn't like having his picture taken...

Melafix and pimafix can be used at the same time - melafix does bacterial infections and pimafix does fungal infections so between them they should sort him out

Has he had any other food apart from the pea since his fast?

They had lettuce the night before and were fine, then soaked sinkers on Sunday morning and were fine all day then too. Then a tiny amount of blanched courgette and their usual peas.

Both were having pretty decent poos while they were picking up the bits of pea they didn't catch on the way down (some bits always land in the gravel), then about an hour later Chub (ranchu) was struggling with buoyancy and a bit of balance.

Flump (oranda) was chasing him around a bit last night too, which he hasn't done for a long time (not since leaving their smaller tank many months ago). Kept checking on them during the night and he was chasing him round even in the dark.

Didn't feed them this morning, and now both are just being normal again - no buoyancy, no chasing, just trundling round and looking for food.

AFAIK, peas have quite a high sugar content. I'm pretty sure that people with iffy digestion can have it aggravated by sugar as the bacteria and yeast in the gut feed on the sugar and give off gas, so maybe there's something in that with fish too

As long as he is getting some greens in his diet it doesn't need to be peas. You can save the peas for emergencies!

If he's being chased about it won't be helping though as it will tire him out and make it harder to him to fight against any balance problems. A fully functioning fish should be ok with a bit of chasing but if he's a little under the weather it might not help.

Good to hear that he's not floating all the time though - that's definitely good news

Had a run to the good LFS, got Pimafix and Melafix at a reasonable price

Another question, wahey :D - On the bottles it says dose daily for 7 days (understand that bit easily enough) but then it says 'after 7 days, do a 25% water change'. But a single 25% change for 7 days seems like nothing... I try to do 30%/40% every 4 days.

Would I be OK continuing my usual changing cycle, dosing the new water as I put it in? Sounds like that'd be alright to do as long as I was accurate with the dosing, but as I've never used the stuff before I thought it might be better to be safe...

Thanks again for all the help, Chub and Flump appreciate it :)

Result on the lfs You can do a water change mid treatment if you remember to add back in whatever you are taking out with the water. So if you've dosed for three days you'd need to add back in three days worth of dose for the fresh water. I wouldn't do a water change mid treatment with any other med as it's a bit of a devil to be sure what you are doing with adding bits back in. But melafix and pimafix are based on essential oils (tea tree and Indian bay tree) so you won't really be able to poison the fish unless you get it really really wrong. Or treat yourself to a day off and dose them for 7 days. I'd leave the water change if it were me - you'll know the meds are at the right concentration then

30-40% every four days sounds quite a lot - do you have trouble with nitrates or something?

Dosed them the first time, they seem (for want of a better description) stoned very relaxed and chilled out and just really 'slow'.

Nitrates... I do and don't have problems. It seems to go high quickly (well, over 40), so the changes I do are to keep it lower than that. They're not big fish but it just seems to rise quicker than I might expect.

I think my tap water is fine... not long after I moved them + all media over to this tank the nitrate was extremely high (2 days after they moved in) but I did a nitrate test on the tap water and it showed almost no nitrate.

I never had live plants until I put in the moss balls the weekend just gone so maybe that didn't help with keeping it low...

Have you got an airstone going? That always helps when you add meds

I used to use something called Kusuri Sabbactisun which was a 'natural' med for bacterial infections and general malaise - I swear it had something in it that used to have a bit of an 'unusual' effect on them! Kusuri don't make it anymore as they now have to disclose their ingredients and their manufacturer wouldn't tell them what was in it ...

Live plants should help a little with nitrates, I have a bit of a constant battle with mine I must admit Tap water levels can change so it's worth testing every now and then as sometimes it's higher than others.

No airstone, just bubbles from the spray bar - it does throw a fair amount of bubbles around, but would an airstone be a good idea? If so, shall add that to next month's expenses

Chub seems happy enough, but Flump's bothering me now... yawning a lot, quicker gill movements, sitting on the bottom (he's 'chilled', but it's still worrying) and I just found a mostly white, cotton-like poo in the tank. Just hoping that's a bacterial one too which will clear up with the stuff I have in now, otherwise it looks like a bit of parasite medication for him.

Goldie problems are like buses, it seems