Ich or something else

[Keithgt]

Hey everyone. So I noticed white spots on my tang and a small clown last night. This morning the spots were gone off both fish. Tonight again they are back. Also there are a ton of white specks floating around in my tank, which I've never seen before and is odd. Am I dealing with ich, or something else?

 

[Keithgt]

Video of said specks

 

[helen ann]

Can you post a pic of the fish? I will get you some help but in the meantime here is a lil' is a little info ...

I don't believe what is the in video is ich but rather some type of copepod,
Ich has a life cycle where they will attach to the fish and then fall off (if you have ich this is why you would see ich one day and not the next ... you can read more about ich here ...
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ich-cryptocaryon-irritans.191226/

@melypr1985 and/or @Humblefish

 

[helen ann]

Also ....

 

[Keithgt]

I am 99%sure it's ich. I didn't realize it would fall of so soon. I am currently setting up a hospital tank to treat with copper, and a bigger permanent qt to move them too after the copper has done it's job. Only 2 are showing signs now, I know I should treat them all, but for how long? Treat all the same? Take the healthy looking ones out sooner if they don't show signs?

I hate I don't have time to cycle the qt but I just don't. I'll be doing daily water changes, and treating with prime and purigen to help through the cycle. I'll also be doing daily wc in the hospital tank.

Knowing I have a hospital, and qt...how would you go about treatment? I've already got coppersafe, I'm going to get a test kit tomorrow before I start dosing anything.

I do have a mandarin. I'm debating on just putting him in the qt tank. Do you think I would be safe doing that? Or I do have another 10 gallon I can setup to put him in for a few days before moving him to the main qt....

 

[helen ann]

Sorry, can't really be of any further assistance

While we wait for @melypr1985 and/or @Humblefish
Let's see if anyone from #reefsquad is around to assist.

 

[TheEngineer]

Ich's lifecycle isn't that fast and based on the size of those spots it looks like velvet to me. You need to get all of the fish out and treat them immediately. You will need to go fallow in your DT too.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/

Melypr and Humblefish will likely be along to give a definitive answer.

 

[helen ann]

Ich's lifecycle isn't that fast and based on the size of those spots it looks like velvet to me. You need to get all of the fish out and treat them immediately. You will need to go fallow in your DT too.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/

Melypr and Humblefish will likely be along to give a definitive answer.

See, I knew someone with more experience would show up ... Thank you!

 

[Keithgt]

Ich's lifecycle isn't that fast and based on the size of those spots it looks like velvet to me. You need to get all of the fish out and treat them immediately. You will need to go fallow in your DT too.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/

Melypr and Humblefish will likely be along to give a definitive answer.

With the info in that link, it sounds like velvet is a very fast killer. These spots were noticed originally 30 hours ago or so with no signs of them getting dramatically worse.

 

[Keithgt]

Still I'm kinda at a stand still until tomorrow....

 

[Keithgt]

Something else to note....I'm very zoomed in on that clown, it's tiny. The specs on him are easily smaller than a grain of sand.

 

[helen ann]

Still I'm kinda at a stand still until tomorrow....

Since you can't do anything until tomorrow I would wait for melypr1985 and/or Humblefish to chime in after they review your pic and posts.

Sorry about your fish!

 

[Keithgt]

This is the fish that brought it in...I know is a terrible picture but if you zoom in you can see some detail...if that helps at all.

 

[Keithgt]

Only clear pic of the tang I could get. He doesn't exactly stop for pics, lol

 

[TheEngineer]

I'm by no means experienced, I've just recently had some experience with velvet and my limited understanding is that ich spots are larger than velvet. The velvet spots are like grains of sand. There is a 12 hour variant of velvet but I think most ich variants stay on the host for at least a day. That to me, based on how fast you saw the spots and then they went away would indicate the fast velvet variety to me.

 

[Keithgt]

 

[Keithgt]

I'm by no means experienced, I've just recently had some experience with velvet and my limited understanding is that ich spots are larger than velvet. The velvet spots are like grains of sand. There is a 12 hour variant of velvet but I think most ich variants stay on the host for at least a day. That to me, based on how fast you saw the spots and then they went away would indicate the fast velvet variety to me.

Gotcha. Looks like treatment is about the same for either? I'll have them starting treatment in less than 12 hours.

 

[TheEngineer]

Here is my velvet treatment thread. You might find some useful details here.

http://reef2reef.com/threads/ttm-day2-i-think-theres-ich.269576/

 

[TheEngineer]

Gotcha. Looks like treatment is about the same for either? I'll have them starting treatment in less than 12 hours.

With ich you can do the tank transfer method instead of copper. With velvet you have to do copper or chloroquine phosphate.

If it is velvet, really do follow what humblefish wrote. It works. I went with Copper Power for my copper source and the fish tolerated it well.

 

[jbow50]

Im going through the same thing. I was negligent in thinking this couldn't happen to me. Well it did . Im taking steps now to cure it as well. My kole tang was doing really bad. Lost his color and gasping for breathe. I switched everyone over to hospital tanks with copper power and air stones. Since then my all my tangs have been breathing much better almost immediately.