Clownfish Ich or Velvet - Treatment

Ethan P · May 10, 2018

Hey Reefers,
I am sure you get many questions like this, but I am having some issues with my clown fish in my 60 gallon cube reef tank. I added 2 clown fish about two weeks ago and they have been doing well until now. Last night I noticed One of them showed a couple spots on the body and they recently fell off. I think he now has one spot on his eye and two on his tail. They are acting completely normal and still eating. This is my first reef tank, but I am experienced with freshwater and I know how important the stuff is to treat very quickly. I bought this tank used, and use the live rock from it, and the person who had it before me had a clown fish in there that looked like they had velvet or something similar. They had a cloudy slimy sort of coat on them. I had the live rock curing without fish for like six weeks, and I thought that would be enough but I guess I was wrong. Long story short, I don’t have a quarantine system and can’t afford to set one up right now. What medicines should I use if any? I am fine with adding medicines to the display tag, because the clown fish are the only livestock in there right now. Sorry for the long post, but I am concerned and know I need to act quickly.
Thank you in advance for any help.

Crabs McJones · May 10, 2018

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Do you have any pictures of the fish so we can help with diagnosis? Velvet and Brook are two common clownfish illnesses. Also I wouldn't treat in the display tank. Even if it's a cheap 10 gallon tank with a hang on back filter that would suffice for a quarantine tank. You don't ever want to treat your display tank as the medication can soak into your rock and leach out over time, causing corals and any inverts you get in the future to either be extremely unhappy or die on you.

Carterfish · May 10, 2018

If your going with a fish only system you can treat the display tank. In best circumstance you would have set up qt but if you can’t treat the tank with copper. You’ll want to make sure everything that’s not fish is out of tank though bc it will most likely die from the copper treatment.