Any causes for white spots other than ich/velvet?

[Kathryn Lawson]

I recently acquired two black mollies from a freshwater hobbyist who was moving, and acclimated them over to saltwater. The mollies have been in my display tank for about a week now, and I'm noticing some small white spots on them (and one possible white-ish projection near the gills). From what I read, very few freshwater diseases can survive in saltwater except maybe some internal parasites. All the other fish in my display tank are looking fine (except for a blenny who has shown some flashing/rubbing and I plan to treat for parasites soon).

 

Is this a dead ringer that my display tank is infected with ich or velvet, and I need to remove/treat the fish and let the display tank go fallow? Or is it possible that there could be another cause for the white spots on the mollies that I haven't considered?

 

I tried to get some photos of them, shown below. Apologies for the photo quality - these little guys are active! A few streaks and maybe some spots are due to stuff on the glass, but certainly not all.

 

[WheresTheReef]

Black mollies can be used as a test since they have no immunity to saltwater pathogens (if this is the first conversation to saltwater)

https://www.ultimatereef.net/threads/black-molly-quarantine.856789/

 

Hard to tell from the pics. Might be ich. Compare your mollies to the link above. Velvet would have way more dots and likely your fish would all be dead. If you didn't treat your other fish, it's possible it was in the tank and the other fish have some immunity to it. If this is the case you have a couple options. 

 

1) Manage it through good feedings and water quality. Just be aware that stress can bring out an outbreak down the road.

2) Take your fish out and treat them all. If you go down this path then it's best to treat all your new fish too. This is the path I took after a velvet outbreak many years ago. You would need to put your tank through a fallow period. Here is a good link for QT (https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/quarantine.2/). I haven't done the hybrid TTM but it sounds promising (https://humble.fish/community/index.php?threads/hybrid-ttm-to-treat-more-parasites.1765/)