thenanoreef
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Thenanoreef
Help save my fish with ich
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Thenanoreef
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thenanoreef
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Uhh ohh. Not a new fish had it around a month
@Humblefish
@Humblefish
Probably just ich then. It would be rare for velvet to take an entire month to manifest symptoms. If you can't QT, read this: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ich-eradication-vs-ich-management.188775/
The guys (customers) down at my LFS swear by Herbtana & Artemiss to manage ich in their reef tanks.
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thenanoreef
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Thanks @Humblefish . He wasn't eating pellets for that few days and now that I added a little garlic and ginger to my frozen food he is eating little prices at a time. Hopefully a little TLC will wip this guy back into shape.
Thenanoreef
Thenanoreef
FYI; you will never rid your aquarium of ich until you treat all your fish in a QT and go fallow for 72 days. The best you can do is try to manage the presence of the parasite in your tank between now & then. As I discuss in my article, people have varying degrees of success when employing ich management techniques.
Keep a close eye on this fish. If he becomes completely covered in white dots, you've got a real problem on your hands. I could be wrong, but something about that pic looks like the early stages of velvet to me. And I experiment on fish with velvet a lot.
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thenanoreef
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@Humblefish the good news is that after feeding him a home made concoction of ginger and garlic with frozen brine shrimp the white specs have almost completely disappeared. Then today I got some herbana that I got shipped overnight from amazon. After reading the reviews it definitely sounds worth a try. Does the white spots going away mean that the it as manifested more, or that it is receding. My guess is the latter.
thenanoreef
thenanoreef
The white spots are not the actual parasites, as those are invisible to the naked eye. What you are seeing is excess mucous built up around the insertion points.
If this is ich, the parasite only remains on the fish for 3-7 days. After dropping off, it will encyst upon rocks, substrate, shells - anything with a hard surface really. 3-72 days after that happens, theronts i.e. free swimmers will emerge from the encysted tomonts seeking to infect fish again. This cycle will continue indefinitely until you go fallow. Sometimes you will see the trophonts i.e. white spots on the fish, sometimes not. Sometimes they harbor just inside the gills.
FYI; the reason for the wide range (3-72 days) is theront release varies greatly according to strain, temperature and other factors.
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thenanoreef
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@Humblefish Well lets hope that I will have an easy next three months and between then hopefully I will be able to go fallow for a little while
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thenanoreef
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@Humblefish What size qt do you think will work for 2 clowns and my flame. Do you think 20g long would be fine for a 3 month fallow period?
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thenanoreef
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@Humblefish I never should have doubted your expertise. After a few days of considerable improvement, the flame died last night. I cannot seem to keep and fish other than clowns :mad:.
thenanoreef
thenanoreef
Sorry to hear of your loss.
Clownfish are typically very disease resistant, due to their incredibly thick mucous coat. It sounds like what you need is a "clean slate" in the DT. How many fish are left? Just the clowns?
Curious to know what equipment you run in regards to keeping parameters stable. Ich is everywhere and i havent seen a lfs that doesnt atleast have one fish with it. Its almost impossible to never add it to your tank unless you are super strict with qt. This is my experience with it. I bought a blue tang with it and added it straight to a tank with other fish and coral (i can hear all the qt freaks at this stage screaming from across the pond.... im in australia.) Anyway my parameter do not fluctuate main ones being ph, salinity and temp, and my tank is well established with 0 ammonia, nitrite and trate. Picked tang with white spot however seemed very active at lfs. If the fish is healthy there is no reason that their own immune system cant fight of this parasite. Ich becomes an issue when the fish is stressed and immune response drops. Fish has been in tank for a few months now and the ich is no where to be seen. I never treated with anything just keep water very stable and problem solved on own. Ppl i find that have reoccurring problems have badly fluctuating parameters usually temp.
Remember clowns are toughies compared to most other fish and if yiu dont run a aquarium controller that can show you parameters 24hrs i would recommend checking manually at different times including early hours of the morning. You may be having huge fluctuations in temp or ph at 2am and this is causing u problems with more delicate fish. Ph could also be droping when lights are off, do you have a refugium with lights reversed to display lights to counter and do you regularly use ph 8.3 buffer?
Remeber the most important thing for life is stability.
Remember clowns are toughies compared to most other fish and if yiu dont run a aquarium controller that can show you parameters 24hrs i would recommend checking manually at different times including early hours of the morning. You may be having huge fluctuations in temp or ph at 2am and this is causing u problems with more delicate fish. Ph could also be droping when lights are off, do you have a refugium with lights reversed to display lights to counter and do you regularly use ph 8.3 buffer?
Remeber the most important thing for life is stability.
I have had ich only once upon first set up of my current system 7 years ago. My clown gobies brought it. Since then, no outbreaks. I do have a very strict at practice for new fish though. Not to help the new fish per se, but to keep my current fish from getting ill.
After finding brook in 2 of my anthias, from online order, I really do not take chances.
I am fortunate to have microscope abilities and access to some experts if needed. Plus my background in vet med helps.
After finding brook in 2 of my anthias, from online order, I really do not take chances.
I am fortunate to have microscope abilities and access to some experts if needed. Plus my background in vet med helps.
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thenanoreef
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@bproctor I honestly think it was an issue of malnutrition on mu part. I should have noticed the flame not responding to pelt food earlier and changed up the food. I think the lack of food stressed it out and made it vulnerable to ich. I don't think the my parameters are fluctuation that much because none of my corals have shown any signs of stress whatsoever, but it may be something to check into. I am going to focus on my corals for a while now and keep it to the 2 clowns. One last note. I never mentioned that my tank is only 24 gallons. Now I already know that you will say that it is too small of a tank for a flame. Let me just tell you that the flame never exhibited any claustrophobic behaviors of darting rapidly around the tank so I don't really think that it was the tank size which caused the stress. Like anything, we will never know exactly what happened, but I suppose it is lesson learned.
