Advice on where to go from here-Ich?

Eldritch_blast · Jan 10, 2022

Hello,

Well here I am where I didn't want to be. No QT protocol in place. New setup. It has been set up about 4 months. Have followed many proper suggestions in terms of the route I have gone to this point.

I got a QT tank set up last night, when I noticed some white docks on my Wrasse. The tank is 115 gallon. There are 2 clowns, a Longnose Hawkfish, McKockser's Wrasse, and as of 2 days ago, a small orange sleeper goby.

As mentioned, noticed some spots on the Wrasse just yesterday afternoon. Has been eating/acting normally. One spot on each fin, then noticed what looked like one on one of its eyes. I set up a 29 gallon tank in my garage, with fresh salt and got a HOB filter running with filter pad and carbon (expecting to remove carbon) with a heater in it, as Its about 60 degrees in the garage I figured it would take some time to get up to temp.

So up to today, home from work, and spots on wrasse seem more pronounced, definitely the one on the eye is, as its very evident it is there now.

Looking for suggestions as to which route to go from here. I for some reason hadn't put the QT tank higher on my priority list, like, before getting fish. Took a wrong turn, and would like to get back on track for the right way to approach. First thing's first though, should I try to power a cycle quickly with Bottled bac and ammonia? Should I seed the QT tank with some bioballs from my sump and pop a fresh ammonia badge on hospital? my Fiancé is home often, and could easily assist in monitoring/water changes if getting the wrasse isolated asap is suggested.

I suppose identifying what exactly the issue is ich vs velvet so if more info there is needed, let me know. I will be attempting to get some pictures, but wanted to get this posted.

I am sure there is a heap of info needed here just let me know I am a bit frantic at the moment trying to get things moving. All other fish show no signs of anything-although I have not seen the Goby- it is still hiding, has not come out to check things out yet-worried also about that but one thing at a time.

Jay Hemdal · Jan 10, 2022

Eldritch_blast said:
Hello,

Well here I am where I didn't want to be. No QT protocol in place. New setup. It has been set up about 4 months. Have followed many proper suggestions in terms of the route I have gone to this point.

I got a QT tank set up last night, when I noticed some white docks on my Wrasse. The tank is 115 gallon. There are 2 clowns, a Longnose Hawkfish, McKockser's Wrasse, and as of 2 days ago, a small orange sleeper goby.

As mentioned, noticed some spots on the Wrasse just yesterday afternoon. Has been eating/acting normally. One spot on each fin, then noticed what looked like one on one of its eyes. I set up a 29 gallon tank in my garage, with fresh salt and got a HOB filter running with filter pad and carbon (expecting to remove carbon) with a heater in it, as Its about 60 degrees in the garage I figured it would take some time to get up to temp.

So up to today, home from work, and spots on wrasse seem more pronounced, definitely the one on the eye is, as its very evident it is there now.

Looking for suggestions as to which route to go from here. I for some reason hadn't put the QT tank higher on my priority list, like, before getting fish. Took a wrong turn, and would like to get back on track for the right way to approach. First thing's first though, should I try to power a cycle quickly with Bottled bac and ammonia? Should I seed the QT tank with some bioballs from my sump and pop a fresh ammonia badge on hospital? my Fiancé is home often, and could easily assist in monitoring/water changes if getting the wrasse isolated asap is suggested.

I suppose identifying what exactly the issue is ich vs velvet so if more info there is needed, let me know. I will be attempting to get some pictures, but wanted to get this posted.

I am sure there is a heap of info needed here just let me know I am a bit frantic at the moment trying to get things moving. All other fish show no signs of anything-although I have not seen the Goby- it is still hiding, has not come out to check things out yet-worried also about that but one thing at a time.

Can you post pictures?
You want to confirm ich, because the treatment is going to be pretty involved and you don’t want to go down that road if you don’t have to!
Re: ich versus velvet, if you see spots early on, it’s ich. Velvet will show as rapid breathing only.
Jay

Eldritch_blast · Jan 10, 2022

Jay Hemdal said:
Can you post pictures?
You want to confirm ich, because the treatment is going to be pretty involved and you don’t want to go down that road if you don’t have to!
Re: ich versus velvet, if you see spots early on, it’s ich. Velvet will show as rapid breathing only.
Jay

Thanks for the quick response!

I found video was able to capture and see better, the stills I took from it wouldn’t hold as good. I’m making a gif I can post of that video, but here’s what I could get for pictures.

Edit: Looking on my desktop now, I can see these pictures aren't very good. Sorry Tomorrow I will try again I suppose.

The one good one, the spot on eye is not light glare that is a spot

Jay Hemdal · Jan 11, 2022

Eldritch_blast said:
Thanks for the quick response!

I found video was able to capture and see better, the stills I took from it wouldn’t hold as good. I’m making a gif I can post of that video, but here’s what I could get for pictures.

Edit: Looking on my desktop now, I can see these pictures aren't very good. Sorry Tomorrow I will try again I suppose.

The one good one, the spot on eye is not light glare that is a spot

Tough to see - the spot on its right eye could be ich, but its a little large. One way to tell ich apart from other "white spots" is that ich spots will come and go over time - you'll see a spot and then, the next day it will be gone, and then other spots show up elsewhere. If you see the same spot in the same location for more than about 2 days, it isn't ich.

Jay

Eldritch_blast · Jan 15, 2022

So the spots on the fins are gone…the spot on the right eye is still there, but a bit harder to see. Some “ashy” sheen or whiteish discoloration evident but hard to describe on wrasse’s body

still eating fine, although does seem to be hanging out with the clowns more than usual, who usually take up residence near the return inlet. The wrasse still spends plenty of time moving around everywhere, but as far as different behavior this is all I have noticed

min wondering if I shouldn’t try a FW dip with wrasse to see if I can ID flukes? Would flukes cause a spot on eye? I managed to get a couple better pics, but I have some skills to hone in on for sure capturing a good shot.

It also looks like what I was hoping were Boston’s are Dinos so also getting ready to deal with this.

Spieg · Jan 15, 2022

To answer your previous question, I don't generally bother with cycling a QT. I do enough water changes to keep up with any ammonia generated.

Lavey29 · Jan 15, 2022

If you got the sick fish in QT, I would treat your DT with something like dr. Tim's probio which is natural substance to help fish immune systems.

As you determine what you're dealing with.

Eldritch_blast · Jan 15, 2022

Lavey29 said:
If you got the sick fish in QT, I would treat your DT with something like dr. Tim's probio which is natural substance to help fish immune systems.

As you determine what you're dealing with.

I have not put my wrasse in QT yet, should I? I wasn’t sure I should yet but it’s probably for the best. I just need to get some fittings in there for it to hide in them I can try to catch

Jay Hemdal · Jan 15, 2022

Eldritch_blast said:
So the spots on the fins are gone…the spot on the right eye is still there, but a bit harder to see. Some “ashy” sheen or whiteish discoloration evident but hard to describe on wrasse’s body

still eating fine, although does seem to be hanging out with the clowns more than usual, who usually take up residence near the return inlet. The wrasse still spends plenty of time moving around everywhere, but as far as different behavior this is all I have noticed

min wondering if I shouldn’t try a FW dip with wrasse to see if I can ID flukes? Would flukes cause a spot on eye? I managed to get a couple better pics, but I have some skills to hone in on for sure capturing a good shot.

It also looks like what I was hoping were Boston’s are Dinos so also getting ready to deal with this.

You could try a FW dip, but some flukes are too small to be seen in the dip water unless you use a low power microscope. If the fish improves a day or two after the dip, that helps confirm flukes.
Jay

Eldritch_blast · Feb 20, 2022

Well Mr. @Jay Hemdal i will be pulling the rocks from the tank today to get at least my wrasse into quarantine.

I have spent the better part of every weekend attempting a different method to try and avoid pulling rocks out but I’m doing it today.
Here’s a video I was able to get. Behavior is still much of the same as before. Eating fine, but rubbing against glass occasionally and a lot of flashing. Not near the return pump anymore though, and does spend a good amount of time just looking like a normal wrasse, hunting much of the time for pods.

I noticed today, it almost looks like flaking scales, like some protrusions from the skin I could notice while I was viewing either it’s direct front or back profile if that makes sense? Also some pictures attached from the vid.
Video

having some issues posting pics for some reason

Eldritch_blast · Feb 20, 2022

Popped into my LFS and they think definitely ich. They reccomended just pullling all 4 fish and running hypo for fallow, no copper treatment.

is that sound advice?

Jay Hemdal · Feb 20, 2022

Eldritch_blast said:
Popped into my LFS and they think definitely ich. They reccomended just pullling all 4 fish and running hypo for fallow, no copper treatment.

is that sound advice?

The fish looks pretty good in the video, but it is too far away to see if it has ich or not. Hyposalinity works well for ich, as well as some flukes.
Jay

Eldritch_blast · Feb 20, 2022

Jay Hemdal said:
The fish looks pretty good in the video, but it is too far away to see if it has ich or not. Hyposalinity works well for ich, as well as some flukes.
Jay

Let me see if I can get these pictures loaded again

wow they just won’t load. Will try from desktop later, thx Jay

Lavey29 · Feb 20, 2022

Loading pictures has been difficult on R2R

Eldritch_blast · Feb 21, 2022

Ok @Jay Hemdal one more tag for you in this post...BTW its pretty friggen awesome R2R has a resident expert we can just @ when we need helps!! Time to get my supporter flair!

Whoa holy cow even Imgur was having issues with uploads wonder whats going on? Anyways, I got em.

photo 1
photo 2
photo 3

Jay Hemdal · Feb 22, 2022

Eldritch_blast said:
Ok @Jay Hemdal one more tag for you in this post...BTW its pretty friggen awesome R2R has a resident expert we can just @ when we need helps!! Time to get my supporter flair!

Whoa holy cow even Imgur was having issues with uploads wonder whats going on? Anyways, I got em.

photo 1
photo 2
photo 3

I can't rule out ich, but the spots still seem kind of large. Also, this has been hanging around for some time now - over a month? Is the wrasse the only fish with spots?

I still think that hypo would be the way to go, it will handle ich and many types of flukes (my second diagnosis).

Jay

Eldritch_blast · Feb 26, 2022

Drained the tank today and pulled all the rocks. It was an extremely stressful event for the wrasse because as soon as I put my hands in the tank it knew to fear for its life.

It hid in its favorite hidy hole, and made me basically shake it out of the rock in the pond liner I really wish I would have waited to do a FW dip, but my logic told me better to just have one stressful even rather than another one shortly after.

aside from the flashing and the spots on the wrasse, it really seemed fine.

And now it’s dead. It didn’t survive whatever my uninformed novice plan was. Feel like I killed it.

Followed all the steps as best I could.

This is extremely discouraging. I never even got to figure out what exactly was wrong with it, wish I would have just left it in the DT to see if with good diet and time it could beat whatever this was? I feel terrible.

Miami Reef · Feb 26, 2022

Fish losses happen to the best of us. It’s not fair to guilt yourself for taking care of your animals.

I really don’t understand how the fish just died like that. I’m assuming you caught the fish and transferred it to a new tank and it died? This doesn’t make sense.

Eldritch_blast · Feb 26, 2022

Miami Reef said:
Fish losses happen to the best of us. It’s not fair to guilt yourself for taking care of your animals.

I really don’t understand how the fish just died like that. I’m assuming you caught the fish and transferred it to a new tank and it died? This doesn’t make sense.

I’m not going to beat myself up too bad, but sure I can take some guilt. I screwed up somehow, and just expect to be and do better.

catching the fish was more stressful of an event than I realized, as I had to pull my 3 rock structures out. One of which it would not come out of the hole in.
The rock was too heavy for me to hold and wait for fish to flip out above display tank on my little step stool, so I had to wait for it to come out in the holding pond I was using.

I did a FW dip before transferring it to my QT tank.

I had all the temps match between transfers, but I’m guessing my attempt at the FW dip is where I went wrong, as it immediately laid on its side in the dip. I didn’t know if they do that you should pull it out immediately ( hard to remember everything when the stress of the event going on) so I left it in there for 4 minutes. I nudged it a couple times with finger and it would swim around a bit.

I transferred to QT tank, which was not hypo yet. I was going to bring it down to hypo in time, just wanted to get it transferred first.

It was not in good shape at all once in there. It would just lay on bottom, then I would nudge it, and ut would swim to surface to gulp for air.

I watched it for a few minutes but my DT was halfway drained with no pumps running so I started to worry about the time that was down and couldn’t be in two places at once. 20 minutes later came back to the wrasse, dead.