Can fish be itchy?

[borillion]

Covering it probably will help a bit to prevent them from spooking. I wouldn't personally use any substrates because that just is a decomposition magnet. If you're treating with anything you're going to have to end up throwing that substrate away anyway.

 

[Nasabeau]

Covering it probably will help a bit to prevent them from spooking. I wouldn't personally use any substrates because that just is a decomposition magnet. If you're treating with anything you're going to have to end up throwing that substrate away anyway.

My thought on substrate is I can throw in live sand to keep the ammonia from spiking, along with a live rock to help turbo start the tank. my main concern is about the bio load I'm going to put on an uncycled tank. yeah, in theory I would have to throw away the rock and the sand, unless I just left it as a permanent QT, in which case it doesn't really matter if there is a little extra copper leaching out into the water

 

[Deep]

Just want to be sure that it is indeed the madagascar half banded flasher wrasse

 

[Nasabeau]

Suit yourself, but I'm telling you I've done it in 40 gallons with HOB filter and a heater (plus a half dozen PVC elbows). I have a Tomini Tang, Coral Beauty Angel, Royal Grama, Six Line Wrasse, Yellow Corris Wrasse, Bicolor Blenny, and a few Orange Tail Damsels. Get an ammonia alert placard, feed lightly and change water as needed to maintain water quality.

Do a quick search on freshwater dip for marine fish and read a little. It takes about 15 minutes and you will be able to see if any flukes fall off (do it in a white bucket so it's easier to see if anything parasites fall to the bottom).

That is what my container looks like after a fresh water dip of the coral. not sure what I'm looking at to be honest. that was quite the rodeo getting him out of the tank

 

[Spieg]

Can't really see the photo well enough to say. Flukes tend to be like short off-white worm looking things. They don't like fresh water so will drop off the fish pretty quickly.

 

[Nasabeau]

Can't really see the photo well enough to say. Flukes tend to be like short off-white worm looking things.

I'll be 100% honest, I was not able to watch the coral very closely because I was trying to revive my gramma (he's fine, just managed to accidentally hitch a ride into my rock bucket unbeknownced to me ) but when I took him back out of the tank I did not see anything like that on him. I do see stuff like this in the water though

 

[Spieg]

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/video-how-to-do-a-freshwater-dip.214/

 

[Nasabeau]

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/video-how-to-do-a-freshwater-dip.214/

That is the exact thread I followed. so, I'm not really seeing opaque circles, especially not the size they're saying... I think we can rule out flukes, at least on the Coral Beauty. I didn't fresh water dip the Tang, because I feel its probably safe to assume they are suffering from the same thing and it took me forever just to get the CB out of the tank... and doing so ended with me having my wife watch a salt water fish playing dead in a fresh water bucket while I held another fish in front of a powerhead because I might be a complete idiot. I feel like the jury is coming back on that one pretty soon

Edit: literally might have been the most chaotic moment in my life. at least a top contender. especially since the CB is my wife's favourite and she was almost in tears because she was sure I was going to kill him. just kept saying "watch his gills" over and over

Edit 2: they're both behaving normally (the gramma and the CB) so I think its safe to assume I didn't kill anyone, which is honestly better results than I thought I was going to get when I realized the gramma was not in the tank anymore

 

[Nasabeau]

Update to everyone following: after speaking with a couple of other people off the forum, and some more research, my plan moving forward is going to be to start by doing a fresh water dip of the tang to force parasites off it, since that seemed to work very will with the CB, then pull my inverts and dose the tank with ich-x per instructions. should the problem persist at that point, I believe I am going to try hyposalinity, again, with no inverts in the tank, and worst comes to worst, I plan to dose copper in the DT. The tank transfer method just doesn't really seem feasible with my current resources, and I am aware that if I do have to dose copper in the DT the tank will likely be permanently FOWLR and I am okay with that.

edit: I know, you guys don't like the idea of not having inverts in the tank, but tbh, I am okay with that. its just way more feasible for me to remove 8 snails and a crab and put them in a little 1-5 gallon tank with salt water for a few months than it would be for me to deal with transferring multiple large fish

 

[Nasabeau]

Update to everyone following: today was my fourth dose of ich-x, my crab and snail are happily in a small 10 gallon tank on my bookshelf. I've been feeding them algae tabs and some extra fish food, and they seem to be doing okay. I have not seen any ich on any of the fish since the first day of dosing, and they actually seem a lot more active (and they've been eating a lot more than they had been). The instructions say continue treatment for at least 3 days after the last visible sign of ich, so I plan to dose tomorrow and then watch closely, but I think this worked extraordinarily well. if I don't see ich on the fish after a week, I will return the activated carbon to the filter (ich-x asks it be removed, probably because activated carbon binds formalin) and give it 24 hours before returning the inverts to the tank. I have very high hopes right now, as before dosing EVERY morning the tang was absolutely covered in spots, and even looking very closely, I haven't been able to find a single one. I did not end up freshwater dipping the tang, as I was worried he might be too stressed already, so him getting better can really only be the treatment, nothing else has changed.