Neon Goby ick or?

[Dutch_Mill]

Last week one of my Neon Gobies started with these symptoms. By now all my Neon Gobies have this. My other fish are 100% fine including my Tang. First I thought Ick, but perhaps it's something else? This is the best picture I could take. They still eat as eager as ever.

I've started increasing feeding since last week (nitrate/phosphate has rissen slightly) and since last night I started dosing H2O2. 1ml (3%) per 6 hours in a 25g tank.

I tried catching them but that seems to be impossible unless I break my reef down.

 

[Nick Steele]

Looks like it to me. Sometimes certain fish will get it first. I had a clown goby that caught it and my clownfish didn’t get it till almost 3 weeks later.

Also your “neon goby” is actually a figaro/yellow line goby.

 

[Dutch_Mill]

If it's Ick I will stick to my current plan. If it spreads to other fish I guess breaking down my reef and go fallow for 6 weeks is the next option.

Increased feeding
Overkil UV filter
Vitamins
H2O2 dosing

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

If it's Ick I will stick to my current plan. If it spreads to other fish I guess breaking down my reef and go fallow for 6 weeks is the next option.

Increased feeding
Overkil UV filter
Vitamins
H2O2 dosing

Yes - that does look like ich. Neon and other Elacatinus gobies with ich look a bit different than other fish - the spots are more mucus-covered, and sometimes larger.

What you are proposing to do is called "ich management", it works in some cases, but not all. The feeding aspect is usually not helpful, but increased water changes can be. Adding vitamins to the water should be avoided, you just feed that to bacteria. H2O2 may have some benefit, but dosing levels is critical - too low and you get no benefit, and too high and you risk harming the animals, starting with shrimp and snails. I use test strips to monitor the peroxide levels. Another technique that may help is to siphon off the tank bottom/substrate which removes tomonts before they have the chance to release theronts.

Jay

 

[Dutch_Mill]

Yes - that does look like ich. Neon and other Elacatinus gobies with ich look a bit different than other fish - the spots are more mucus-covered, and sometimes larger.

What you are proposing to do is called "ich management", it works in some cases, but not all. The feeding aspect is usually not helpful, but increased water changes can be. Adding vitamins to the water should be avoided, you just feed that to bacteria. H2O2 may have some benefit, but dosing levels is critical - too low and you get no benefit, and too high and you risk harming the animals, starting with shrimp and snails. I use test strips to monitor the peroxide levels. Another technique that may help is to siphon off the tank bottom/substrate which removes tomonts before they have the chance to release theronts.

Jay

Yes that what you describe is exactly why I started doubting wether it was ick or not. I actually add the vitamins to the frozen food while they melt and let it sit overnight. When I pour it in I do include "melting water" though, should I seeve it out and just add the frozen food from now on?

For dosing I am following a post (How To Peroxide (H2O2) dosing for parasites in reef tank) from another forum that included a excel sheet that calculates doses depending on gallons. I'll order test strips to monitor H2O2 levels.

Siphon off the tank bottom will be a challenge considering my 25g nano is full of rocks... Never considered convenience when setting this up. Don't the ick tomonts also stick to rocks?

 

[BryznNguyen]

I used to have a sharknose with ick that looked like that he was find after I did copper treatment

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Yes that what you describe is exactly why I started doubting wether it was ick or not. I actually add the vitamins to the frozen food while they melt and let it sit overnight. When I pour it in I do include "melting water" though, should I seeve it out and just add the frozen food from now on?

For dosing I am following a post (How To Peroxide (H2O2) dosing for parasites in reef tank) from another forum that included a excel sheet that calculates doses depending on gallons. I'll order test strips to monitor H2O2 levels.

Siphon off the tank bottom will be a challenge considering my 25g nano is full of rocks... Never considered convenience when setting this up. Don't the ick tomonts also stick to rocks?

Yes - ich tomonts can lay in crevices in the rocks, but many of them will be laying on the sand. Ich management relies on lowering the number of theronts however you can, and then killing the theronts through UV and perhaps peroxide (that is still very experimental). You won't be able to eliminate the tomonts altogether by siphoning, but every tomont that you siphon out will reduce the number of theronts the next day by over 200 per tomont removed. I'd run the siphon over the rocks as well.

Vitamins soaked into the food really won't help, they will wash off just as fast as they soaked in. And then, vitamins are usually not a limiting factor in fish health and do not really help cure protozoan diseases like this. A really POOR diet can make a fish predisposed to illness, but most fish are getting decent diets overall (unless you just feed frozen brine shrimp). Vitamins in excess do not cure active disease, fat soluble vitamins in excess can be toxic, and water soluble one, fed in excess just get excreted.

In the end, I'm not a great proponent for ich management in the case of severe disease - my go to treatment is to pull all of the fish and treat them with coppersafe or hyposalinity.

I do need to add that visually identifying a disease from a photograph is never 100% - so if this isn't actually ich, then my advice is moot (grin).

Jay