Black Spots On Black Phantom Tetra?

[Pleco380]

I have 5 black phantom tetras. 2 males and 3 females. The smallest of the females is much lighter in colour than the others. She's grey with little black spots. Kind of like ick but bigger and not bumps. They're more like blotches. Is this just a colouring? I've noticed they tend to get darker and lighter depending on their moods. The other four are very dark. She ate this morning and doesn't look stressed. Is this a problem?

[Pleco380]

Today she died. I did a WC around 5pm today but when I fed the fish tonight she was stuck to the filter intake. She was disoriented and one eye was partially sucked out already. She wouldnt swim and just rolled with the flow until she landed at the bottom of the tank. I decided it was time to euthanize her. I'll have to get a water test ASAP and if all is goof and she was just bad stock I'll buy a new BPT. Strange how she stayed so scrawny while theorists are so healthy. Throughout her short lifetime she often got chased by the males and got the small remainders of food.

[Lady Hobbs]

That's a really small school of tetra's. Might have been some bullying going on. The largest school you can get of them would work out better.

[escamosa]

Did you happen to notice, when you bought them, if the Phantoms were in a tank with snails, Pleco? And were the spots about 2mm round? There is a disease called Black Spot, which is usually spread around by snails. It's a parasite that grows inside the liver of snails. Once the parasite leaves the snail, it finds a fish to live on for a while, and will be hoping the fish is eaten by a bird or another animal to continue to reproduce. It's not usually to much of a problem in aquariums though, because the parasite can't be eaten by anything to keep it going. Any snails in the aquarium should be removed though. It does give the fish a few of the same symptoms as ich, like scratching and holding thier fins in close to thier bodies. So maybe that's something to keep an eye on. It's not usually deadly to fish, so don't panic if it is Black Spot - you just have to get rid of any snails in your tank to stop it.