Did I overreact?

[ErikVR]

No - without proactive treatment, diseases get through, especially flukes and ich. Some fish don't handle medications well (flashlight fish, etc.) for those, you can give them a 45 isolation period to help prevent them from bringing diseases into your main tank, but that does nothing for those fish themselves.

We keep our current quarantine protocol on the first page of this thread:

Current Quarantine Protocol

2024 Quarantine Procedures Jay Hemdal David Scarborough Protozoans (Cryptocaryon/ich, Amyloodinium/velvet) and Metazoan trematodes/flukes are by far the most common parasites found on newly acquired fish. A carefully managed, proactive quarantine process can effectively eliminate these...

www.reef2reef.com

Jay

Thank you so much, again.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Thank you so much, again.

Also a clarification with UV- There have been many posts on R2R especially recently on utilizing UV to remove parasites and algae. UV units are not erasers and will not remove but rather reduce what you have. It addresses what passes through the water channel and is free floating such as protozoans or algae spores. It will not zap the environment and take algae of rocks and glass or protozoans off a fish. Does it help- absolutely but again will address what passes through the unit - If only fish could swim through the unit.

 

[ErikVR]

Also a clarification with UV- There have been many posts on here especially recently on utilizing UV t remove parasites and algae. UV units are not erasers and will not remove but rather reduce what you have. It addresses what passes through the water channel and is free floating such as protozoans or algae spores. It will not zap the environment and take algae of rocks and glass or protozoans off a fish. Does it help- absolutely but again will address what passes through the unit - If only fish could swim through the unit.

I wouldn't want my fish to pass through high intensity UV light!

 

[vetteguy53081]

I wouldn't want my fish to pass through high intensity UV light!

I know

 

[ErikVR]

Well I'll be danged! Just got home to the powderbrown and blue full of white spots! I'm thinking it's sand from my goby that's throwing sand around everywhere.

What do you guys think?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Well I'll be danged! Just got home to the powderbrown and blue full of white spots! I'm thinking it's sand from my goby that's throwing sand around everywhere.

What do you guys think?

That does not look like sticking sand to me. The blue tang *could* have mucus plugs, but the powder brown looks more like ich. I think you need to react to the "worst case scenario" here.

Jay

 

[ErikVR]

That does not look like sticking sand to me. The blue tang *could* have mucus plugs, but the powder brown looks more like ich. I think you need to react to the "worst case scenario" here.

Jay

Luckily I always have ich medication on hand so I started treatment right away. It's Sera costapur F which has always worked wonders on my freshwater tanks. Hoping it does the same for salt water fish. It says it's for marine use as well so should be good.

It still puzzles me that the spots appear and disappear out of nowhere in a matter of hours though. I'm 100% sure that the powderbrown was absolutely spot free yesterday morning and afternoon. It's so easy to see on his dark body.

Anyway, I picked up and over sized UV sterilizer. After the treatment is finished I'll start it up and hopefully this won't happen again.

 

[gbroadbridge]

I would run it 24/7. It also helps kill algae bacteria floating in the water column.

A correctly sized UV operating at a flow rate that is slow enough to manage ich, will not help with Algae.

Algae replicates faster than the UV will be able to sterilise it.

 

[ErikVR]

I don't know whether to laugh, cry or a combination of both.... Both the powerbrown and blue are completely clean again... Is there any disease or infection that can cause these intermittent spots?

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Luckily I always have ich medication on hand so I started treatment right away. It's Sera costapur F which has always worked wonders on my freshwater tanks. Hoping it does the same for salt water fish. It says it's for marine use as well so should be good.

It still puzzles me that the spots appear and disappear out of nowhere in a matter of hours though. I'm 100% sure that the powderbrown was absolutely spot free yesterday morning and afternoon. It's so easy to see on his dark body.

Anyway, I picked up and over sized UV sterilizer. After the treatment is finished I'll start it up and hopefully this won't happen again.

It is commonly seen, when ich first starts up, that all of the trophonts are on the same cycle - they drop off the fish to form tomonts at the same time, then the tomonts release theronts at the same time that cause new trophonts. Eventually, the population gets out of sync with each other and spots appear all the time, in greater numbers.

The only other thing that produces spots that come and go rapidly are sand grains sticking to the fish. This does not look like that to me, and tangs do not have sticky skin mucus that tends to cause sand to stick.

I've never used Sera Costapur F, but it is malachite green and formalin. I have used that combination in other products and it is not very effective against Cryptocaryon, marine ich. Coppersafe or Hyposalinity are the two best treatments.

Ich management techniques:

1) Use a strong UV sterilizer
2) Perform frequent water changes
3) Siphoning the sand late every night to remove tomonts
4) Good mechanical filtration to remove theronts
5) Low dose peroxide additions
6) Provide a good diet

Ich management only works if you catch the infection early enough and do it right. Once the number of trophonts on the fish reach a certain point (perhaps 30 or so spots on any one fish - and yours may be past that point) then "propagule pressure" comes into play, where the effects of the trophonts themselves stresses the fish and the ich management techniques start to fail.


Jay

 

[ErikVR]

Little update; tank just received the second dose and blacked out. The temperature is raised to 26, as prescribed. The blue looks clean but the powderbrown still has some spots left (2-3 per side). All fish are eating very well. But I'm afraid this is just the regular cycle and that it's going to come back worse than the first round.

The manufacturer says in case of heavy ich, dose again on days 5 and 7. I'm wondering what's best, dose again or start up the UV. The meds say don't run UV while medicating the tank. So it's either a second round of meds or UV.

 

[Icryhard]

A correctly sized UV operating at a flow rate that is slow enough to manage ich, will not help with Algae.

Algae replicates faster than the UV will be able to sterilise it.

I don't know about this, since I am not that into UVC and the flowrates etc. all I know is that I run it 24/7 and it has helped both against itch and green algae bloom. Do note the keyword: 24/7 (literally).

 

[Borat]

Overreact? You have over-overreacted!

Itch is more likely to be dangerous to a fish that's stressed.. So best to leave the poor fish alone, feed well and ensure everything and everyone is stress-free (IMO).

 

[ErikVR]

The powderbrown still has spots. It seems to fluctuate. One day he has a couple on each side and the next there's like 10+. He's still looking healthy and is eating a lot.

Is there any chance he'll make it, or has it been too long? (a week now)

 

[threebuoys]

I know we've said it before. Pictures and videos makes diagnosis much easier. Can't really say if the fish is making progress, deteriorating, or false alarm.

 

[hunterallen40]

The powderbrown still has spots. It seems to fluctuate. One day he has a couple on each side and the next there's like 10+. He's still looking healthy and is eating a lot.

Is there any chance he'll make it, or has it been too long? (a week now)

I think there's still a good chance for him so long as he keeps eating.

I am not sure if anybody asked yet, but do you have any corals in this system? If not, you might consider hyposalinity. You can run the sterilizer with hyposalinity, and it will kill ich if done correctly.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

The powderbrown still has spots. It seems to fluctuate. One day he has a couple on each side and the next there's like 10+. He's still looking healthy and is eating a lot.

Is there any chance he'll make it, or has it been too long? (a week now)

That is pretty typical for ich management - it comes and goes day to day. If you are successful, the spots just gradually go away. If management fails, then the spots increase geometrically and the fish get sicker.

No ich treatment is 100% effective, but ich management is always less and malachite green / formalin also fails very often.

There is a tipping point with the number of spots on the fish, as I said I often find that to be around 30, if you hit that point, the number suddenly jumps much higher.

I’ve had fish go along with zero to 10 spots for months and months….

Jay

 

[ErikVR]

That is pretty typical for ich management - it comes and goes day to day. If you are successful, the spots just gradually go away. If management fails, then the spots increase geometrically and the fish get sicker.

No ich treatment is 100% effective, but ich management is always less and malachite green / formalin also fails very often.

There is a tipping point with the number of spots on the fish, as I said I often find that to be around 30, if you hit that point, the number suddenly jumps much higher.

I’ve had fish go along with zero to 10 spots for months and months….

Jay

I'm still trying to find the meds you referred to but they don't seem to exist here. Maybe the substances are banned from entering the water supply... I don't know. Fish stores don't seem to know either.

If he doesn't make it I might go for a fallow period of 70+ days. I have the spare tanks and not many fish yet. So take everything I'm still learning and start fresh. It's funny, when I started I thought I was going to do everything right. Started slowly but when everyone was going fine I got too optimistic and added two fish that were prone to ich. In hindsight I should have waited a year or so... Because of this I am learning about the PROPER quarantine protocols. I guess some learn their lessons the hard way.

What I find difficult is finding the right medications. Reefing is very uncommon over here. Everything in stores is aimed towards fresh water and the stuff available in the US doesn't exist here.

 

[ErikVR]

I think there's still a good chance for him so long as he keeps eating.

I am not sure if anybody asked yet, but do you have any corals in this system? If not, you might consider hyposalinity. You can run the sterilizer with hyposalinity, and it will kill ich if done correctly.

No corals worth mentioning yet. Just a few free test frags.

 

[ErikVR]

Hyposalinity seems a bit scary to me as a novice.
Is there a chance I'll hurt the other fish more than it'll do good for the powerbrown?