White spots on fish

[evil4g63]

Can someone id what this might be ? It started about a week ago with my midas blenny. A few spots in its fins and an ocasional scratching of the gills on the rocks. Gave it a fresh water bath thinking it was flukes but didn’t noticed anything in the water or couldn’t tell if there was something. After that, blenny is now ok but my flame and mimic tang now have it but they don’t scratch on anything. They do however like to get cleaned by my cleaner shrimp every night. They’re not breathing heavily and they it like pigs. They’re always out swimming, grazing and constantly near the front glass whenever someone passes in front of the tank. They really don’t appear to be sick but don’t like those spots in the fins. Water params:

Water temp 76F
Salinity 35ppt
Amonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5
PH 7.6-8.3 (varies a lot because of CO2 levels inside apartment at night. Checked with CO2 meter. You never know you have high CO2 levels until you finally get to borrow a meter)
DKH 9
Calcium 420

[evil4g63]

White spots on fish fins. Forgot to specify that.

[Dmorty217]

If the spots come and go every 72 hrs I would be leaning towards ich

[evil4g63]

The spots have stayed the same for the past week, week and falf. But, i only see them in the tangs pectoral fins and the flame pectoral and tail fin. All the other fish have nothing.

[evil4g63]

Well, it looks like what i have is ick. I’ve started to notice white spots in the tangs body so that settles that. Now the question is, how to effectively treat it. I was thinking of taking all the inverts out of the tank a doing a hypo treatment but i don’t think i can get out all the snails out of the tank to not get an amonia spike because of die off and i’m not sure if the beneficial bacteria will suffer.

If i manage to get all the fish out of the tank, my thoughts would be to do hypo and also do a prazi treatment to make sure no flukes get into the dt. Which route would be better and will it be enough or should i do something else ?

[nereefpat]

If you get all the fish out of the tank, there are much better options than hyposalinity to treat the fish in QT: I would do tank transfer method, but you can also use copper, or CP if you can find it.

If you don't get absolutely every fish out of the display, your efforts will be futile however. And the display needs to remain fishless for a period of time. I would recommend 74 days.

[evil4g63]

I was thinking of doing the ttm as i was going to be able to get results faster but don’t have anything at the moment or the space to accommodate all the fish. Current stocking: 1 mimic tang, 1 flame angel, 1 midas blenny, 1 bangaii cardinal, 1 royal gramma, 1 ocellaris clown. I had initially thought on using a 5 gallon bucket to do the ttm but i’m thinking they’ll turn that into a sewer in no time. Any thoughts ??

[evil4g63]

On a side note though, i read a lot of threads and posts that say 6 weeks is enough to eradicate ick fron the dt but i’ve also come accross a few that always shoot for 70+ days. Which one is it ?? I mean, i was ok with leaving the dt fishless for 6-7 weeks but 11-12 weeks seems like a lot to me. I’m going to be putting them in a 29g qt so was really hoping for not that much time.

[nereefpat]

I was thinking of doing the ttm as i was going to be able to get results faster but don’t have anything at the moment or the space to accommodate all the fish. Current stocking: 1 mimic tang, 1 flame angel, 1 midas blenny, 1 bangaii cardinal, 1 royal gramma, 1 ocellaris clown. I had initially thought on using a 5 gallon bucket to do the ttm but i’m thinking they’ll turn that into a sewer in no time. Any thoughts ??

5 gallon bucket would work for the blenny, cardinal, gramma, clown...but not for tang and angel. Rubbermainds work well. Ideally, something like 20 gallon long tanks are great, especially if petco has them on the 1$/gallon sale.

You can change water and use Prime as needed.

On a side note though, i read a lot of threads and posts that say 6 weeks is enough to eradicate ick fron the dt but i’ve also come accross a few that always shoot for 70+ days. Which one is it ??

It's a bell curve (normal distribution) thing.

Most of the time, the cyst stage of ich is over in a few days-couple weeks. In some study, they found cysts lasting 72 days under a certain condition. So, the longer you wait, the closer you get to 72 days and being 100% sure. The extra couple days comes from adding the rest of the life cycle to the longest reported cyst stage = 72 + a couple days.

[pfan151]

How long has your tank been set up? If not too long I’d just do hypo salinity on the display and remove any inverts. I’ve done it before on my 90 gal and I ended up not losing a single fish. Pulling the fish and keeping them in cramped QT tanks for 76 days is a lot of stress on you and the fish. Hypo is very easy and very effective.

[evil4g63]

Managed to get what i think is a good videoof the tang and the angel. Could some tell me if there is something wrong with them or if something can be spotted. They are still in the same condition, actually scratching less.

https://youtu.be/BJThOj2-P0Y

[outssider]

I don't see anything wrong.....they look healthy to me....

[Uncle99]

Yup , look, act normal
Mine scratches the bottom with the belly sometimes too.

[evil4g63]

I didn’t catch it but he sometimes scratches his whole side on the sand too. The only ones that have that behavior of scratching themselves on the rocks or sand is the tang, blenny and gramma. The other ones never do it. That’s why i’m a bit hesitant on giving them any treatment and putting them through unnecessary stress. They really don’t appear sick, just the occasional scratching and the white spots on the fins that has me worried.

[Dmorty217]

Ich starts in the gills and works its way over the body. Sometimes fish have it and don't show any outward signs of it other than behavior IE scratching

[evil4g63]

Ok, so if it starts in the gills then that could be 1 reason why my blenny is always scratching in that area and why nothing fell off when i did the fresh water bath to it ??? So, if it is that then he’s the one that brought it cause he was the dirst that started scratching then the others followed but what i don’t understand is why the others don’t show any sign. I’ve never seen them scratching, especially the bangaii, he’s been the same since the day i brought him, not even a tiny speck on the fins.

[2_zoa]

Here’s the thing.
You can go all out and catch your fish, treat them. While leaving the DT fallow for the full 76 days. Then you will know for sure that everyone is ich free providing you do the transfers correctly. Meaning on time, containers are cleaned and dry for at least 24 hrs, etc. which means your going to need duplicates of each setup so you can go between the two setups. PLUS your going to need a QT tank large enough to hold everyone for the remaining time that the DT needs to be fallow. This will end your continuing posts about which fish caused it (might not have even been a fish at all that caused this) or if the fish truly have anything wrong.

Should you choose to go through all of this. Your going to need to keep a QT setup going because the first crab, snail, coral, shrimp......you place into the DT that doesn’t get quarantined. All of the efforts you just went through would be for nothing. I personally have a fishesless QT setup all the time for crab,snail,shrimp,coral purchases. My other fish QT gear is only setup when I need it. Which consists of duplicate containers with heaters and PVC pipe fittings. A tank with its own heater etc..

This is why there are those who push so hard for everyone to use a proper QT protocol. This stops things from going way south on a nicely stocked tank later on. Not to mention the QT size can be smaller when the fish are bought one or two at a time and they are smaller fish in the beginning.

[Tripod1404]

Ok, so if it starts in the gills then that could be 1 reason why my blenny is always scratching in that area and why nothing fell off when i did the fresh water bath to it ??? So, if it is that then he’s the one that brought it cause he was the dirst that started scratching then the others followed but what i don’t understand is why the others don’t show any sign. I’ve never seen them scratching, especially the bangaii, he’s been the same since the day i brought him, not even a tiny speck on the fins.

Some fish are more resistant to parasites, cardinalfish are one of those fish. Many wrasses, gobies, anthias, or ,in general, any fish that lives close to substrate in a small range is more resistant. So they will show minimal symptoms, even tough they will still be carriers.

Ich has a cyclic life cycled, white spots will come and disappear and come back on again. At each cycle, its numbers will increase. Older mature tanks can keep ich numbers in check, by having a more complete ecosystem. This gives fish in such systems a fighting chance as they might be able to develop immunity without parasites numbers exploding. As such, people with mature systems can live with ich with little to no impact. But you tank looks young and ich will run amok in such a systems.

By the time you see behavioral symptoms (like heavy breathing, not eating etc.), most of the time it is too late to save the fish. Wild animals do not show signs of sickness until it completely overwhelms them. Any sign of weakness attracts predators, if a fish is showing clear behavioral signals ,it means it is very very sick. So dont wait clear cut behavioral symptoms to conclude they have ich, if they have white spots they most likely have ich. If they had brooks or velvet, they would be dead by now, so that only leaves ich.

The reason why you should do a ~74 day fishless cycle is because even if one parasites survives, it will come back. I know 74 days sucks, but what sucks more is doing it for , say 60 days, and it not working and having to do it for another 74 days.

[neoh74]

If you get all the fish out of the tank, there are much better options than hyposalinity to treat the fish in QT: I would do tank transfer method, but you can also use copper, or CP if you can find it.

If you don't get absolutely every fish out of the display, your efforts will be futile however. And the display needs to remain fishless for a period of time. I would recommend 74 days.



I’ve done tank transfer with great success. I’ve even done very small fish in Home Depot buckets. Seems to be easier on them than copper or hypo. You have to be quick though. One dead fish that burrows itself in the rocks can turn your entire tank!


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[evil4g63]

Ok, i can’t use copper because of the flame and i can’t do the ttm because of the tang and i don’t have something big enough and don’t have the space for it. That only leaves me with hypo. What are your thoughts about hypo and what do you guys think of taking all the rock and invertebrates out of the DT and doing hypo for 3 months on that tank. It’s a lot easier to control salinity and water parameters and it already has the biological filtration to support the fish. By the way, thanks for all the responses. The last few posts really made up my mind on doing something about it. Really, thanks a lot.

[Dmorty217]

If you are going to take the rock and inverts out I would suggest Chloroquine phosphate. Hypo may work but there are strains of ich that are resistant to it and if the salinity raises .001 you have to start the 30 day clock over again