Ick questions

[Planedoc]

I have a 240 gallon with a hippo tang, a naso tang, a yellow eye kole tang 4 clowns, a flame angle and a few other fish. The tank has been running for 10 months. I have not added any fish in 6 months. I did add some crabs and snails about 5 weeks ago. I recently had a problem with cyno growing on the sand. I did 4 50 gallon water changes in the last month and it was going away. Last week i did a 3 days lights out to finish it off. I turned the lights back on last Wednesday. Friday I noticed a few white spots on my hippo tang. The next day there were a few but in different spots. Today there is one white speck. All other fish have no signs of anything. The hippo is happy and doing his thing. He is always been shy and hides when I come in the room.
Question is I've heard some say Ick is always present and will become a problem if fish get stressed. Others say it's a parasite and if present will always be a problem. Should I attempt to do anything or just wait and see what happens. If it is Ick, it's in the tank so quarantining the hippo is a waste of time. I do have a healthy cleaner wrasse and cleaner shrimp? I'm not to worried and don't want to do anything drastic. I want to think the lights out stressed him out and he will be ok in a few days. Only thing that bothers me is all my fish are perfect with no bad markings blemishes or discolored spots, It would be very difficult to replace them. I tried to take pic but he hides and I don't want to stress any more.
Any thoughts

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[spznm]

Ick is always a pain to deal with. From my understanding is that ick is present in all aquariums and healthy fish are able to fight it off on their own. Adding garlic and selcon with help them fight it off better. I think turning off the lights caused it to stress which might have cause the ick outbreak. Do you have a UV sterilizer? Is your temperature constant? Sometimes that causes ick to show up. The cyano bacteria is caused my too many nutrients in your tank, how much live sand/live rock do you have? Do you have a suitable size skimmer?

 

[mike007]

You just never know when ick will popup. Alot of people run uv on there tanks to prevent it. Sress is a likely cause. It can be dormant and show up at any time if present. I have been scared to add any fish to my tank for that reason. If i am interested in buying a fish from my lfs i will watch it for a couple weeks before buying. Quarintine is the best solution.

 

[returnofsid]

There are a lot of myths associated with Ich, a couple have already been posted, in this thread.

Ich is not always present, in a healthy aquarium.
Garlic does absolutely nothing to cure Saltwater Ich and actually causes organ failure in Marine Fish.
UV Sterilization does very little to help with Ich.
Cleaner Shrimp actually don't help with Ich. They would have to actually burrow into the fish flesh to get to the parasite. The white spots you see aren't the parasite, itself, but the scabs they leave behind. Cleaner shrimp will clean up the scabs, but not the actual parasite.

For some really good information, gleaned from a lot of research, please read this sticky, https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-discussion/56989-ich-discussion-treatment-options.html

 

[Planedoc]

If I'm seeing spots in different places in a 24 hour period I don't think it could be scabs that healed that quick. I took over 100 photos a dinner, time this is the only one that you can see the one spot today. It's on the Fwd part of the light blue spot thats on the center of his body

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[returnofsid]

It may not be Ich. The scabs could appear to be "healing" that quickly, if your Cleaner Shrimp is picking the scabs off. From your photo it's going to be very difficult to tell, unfortunately. You'll need a close up, and very focused photo, for a better diagnosis. Otherwise, you could always do a Google Image search for Marine Ich, comparing Google's results with what you're actually seeing.

Ich spots will be very small, looking like your fish has been sprinkled with table salt.

 

[mike007]

I have had them come down with it and they were strong enough thet warded them off and did fine. Thays about all you can hope for. Good luck.

 

[Aquaph8]

There are a lot of myths associated with Ich, a couple have already been posted, in this thread.

Ich is not always present, in a healthy aquarium.
Garlic does absolutely nothing to cure Saltwater Ich and actually causes organ failure in Marine Fish.
UV Sterilization does very little to help with Ich.
Cleaner Shrimp actually don't help with Ich. They would have to actually burrow into the fish flesh to get to the parasite. The white spots you see aren't the parasite, itself, but the scabs they leave behind. Cleaner shrimp will clean up the scabs, but not the actual parasite.

For some really good information, gleaned from a lot of research, please read this sticky, https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-discussion/56989-ich-discussion-treatment-options.html

I agree, and its very common for people think they cured their fish due to not understanding the life cycle of ich.

 

[returnofsid]

I agree, and its very common for people think they cured their fish due to not understanding the life cycle of ich.

Exactly!

 

[Planedoc]

I'm pretty sure everything will be fine. I mise well have a positive attitude since there is not much more I can do.

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[Planedoc]

The spots moved around over the last few days but as of today I don't see any spots on the hippo tang and I have not found anything on any other fish. I'm not sure what it was but is seems fine now. There are so many crazy an weird things I find from the live rock I added I'm sure I'll never know