Dying fish, help ID illness

[Salty Rambler]

The clownfish has white-looking irritation along its scales and isn't sleeping in it's normal location at night. The tailspot blenny and a pajama cardinal have white spots. A royal gramma and a yellow clown goby haven't been seen in three days. The other tank inhabitants show no signs of illness. Prior to the illness appearing, the clownfish showed unusual aggression to the pajama cardinal, biting and tearing the fins you can see in the picture. The fish had previously been cohabitating without aggression. Please help me ID the illness and treat the remaining fish.

#fishmedic

 

[vetteguy53081]

The clownfish has white-looking irritation along its scales and isn't sleeping in it's normal location at night. The tailspot blenny and a pajama cardinal have white spots. A royal gramma and a yellow clown goby haven't been seen in three days. The other tank inhabitants show no signs of illness. Prior to the illness appearing, the clownfish showed unusual aggression to the pajama cardinal, biting and tearing the fins you can see in the picture. The fish had previously been cohabitating without aggression. Please help me ID the illness and treat the remaining fish.

#fishmedic

These spots all appear to be ich parasite and as you may have guessed will have to be placed in a quarantine tank for treatment. There are certain fish that dont treat well with copper but the ones pictured are treatable with coppersafe or copper power. You will need to place fish in Quarantine tank and treat with Coppersafe or Copper Power as just mentioned at therapeutic level 2.25 for a FULL 30 days (do not interrupt this 30 day period) monitored by a reliable Copper Test kit such as Hanna Brand- No API brand. Also monitor Ammonia levels while in quarantine with a reliable test kit and add aeration during treatment using an air stone.
The display tank will have to be kept fishless (FALLOW) for 6-8 weeks to assure the existing parasites go through their life cycle without a host fish and die off
A quarantine tank can be as simple as a tank from a second hand store or a starter kit from Walmart which most of the needed essentials.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Agreed, this looks like ich. Since fish are missing/died, it means the infection is pretty well entrenched, so you will need to treat ASAP. The trouble is, all ich treatments take a few days to work, and in the interim, the fish will continue to sicken and die.

Unfortunately, there is no treatment that you can do with the fish in a tank with coral/invertebrates in it. Your two best options are hypo (low) salinity of coppersafe (as @vetteguy53081 said).

Jay

 

[Salty Rambler]

Appreciate the ID. I thought one was ich, but wasn't sure of the rest given the size/texture difference on each fish. All but two have now been caught and moved to QT. Tomorrow I will hopefully have success catching the stragglers and be able to pick up some coppersafe.

 

[bluemon]

Appreciate the ID. I thought one was ich, but wasn't sure of the rest given the size/texture difference on each fish. All but two have now been caught and moved to QT. Tomorrow I will hopefully have success catching the stragglers and be able to pick up some coppersafe.

There’s a difference in texture because the white spots you see on fish are not the parasites themselves.

it’s the fish’s immune system response to the parasites boring into their skin. mucus plugs and such