What do I do about my ich infestation?

[bookeey517]

Does my fish have Ich? It is acting and eating completely normal but I’ve just today noticed the white spots. I have ich medication and I could construct a makeshift tank but I don’t have a filter to oxidize/clean so I’m really hoping it doesn’t have it ;(

(none of the other fish have it [yet])

 

[KrisReef]

It does appear to have a few white spots.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Medics need your water parameters, is this a fairly new tank/cycled? A couple of more pictures in white light would be helpful. The first is a little fuzzy. If it is ich, you will need copper, a hospital tank and your DT will have to go fallow.


@Jay Hemdal

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Aquarium Fish Disease Problem Solving Determining the best course of action for a problem with your aquarium can be a difficult task. Even advanced aquarists will often need to seek the help of others for complicated or unique issues. Our intent here on Reef 2 Reef is to offer expert advice...

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[Jake4727]

In my opinion and experience qt does nothing but stress the fish more. Keep them together in the current tank and feed more then you ever have. A variety of food that is high in protein. Get fresh seafood from the grocery store and chop it up real nice into small pieces.

 

[Bladezz]

In my opinion and experience qt does nothing but stress the fish more. Keep them together in the current tank and feed more then you ever have. A variety of food that is high in protein. Get fresh seafood from the grocery store and chop it up real nice into small pieces.

I agree - a fish that is eating vigorously will overcome ich.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Does my fish have Ich? It is acting and eating completely normal but I’ve just today noticed the white spots. I have ich medication and I could construct a makeshift tank but I don’t have a filter to oxidize/clean so I’m really hoping it doesn’t have it ;(

(none of the other fish have it [yet])

What other fish are in the tank with it?
Any invertebrates in the tank?

At the start of an infection, marine ich has no real overt symptoms, just white spots. The spots will come and go, but generally increase in numbers of days. New fish will develop spots, and eventually the number of ich trophonts can become so high that the disease progresses geometrically and the fish become overwhelmed. They then begin showing other symptoms and eventually die.

In some cases, the parasite never reaches the explosive growth phase, but that usually requires having a well established tank, a UV sterilizer, very careful management of stress in the fish, daily siphoning of the sand each morning, etc.

Jay

 

[Sebastiancrab]

In my opinion and experience qt does nothing but stress the fish more. Keep them together in the current tank and feed more then you ever have. A variety of food that is high in protein. Get fresh seafood from the grocery store and chop it up real nice into small pieces.

@Jake4727

Jake, you must be very lucky. This has been my experience IN QUARANTINE in the last 18 months:

2 Vanderbilt Chromis - dead in 48 hours velvet
2 Vanderbilt Chromis - dead in 24 hours velvet - different LFS and time period
1 Agile Chromis - dead in three days uronema
1 Yellow Tail Damsel - dead after a month due to brooklynella and ich (lost two more of my DT fish due to not quarantining the damsel long enough!)

i have been purchasing fish from four LFS. These are the ones I can think of off of the top of my head. I also lost half of my freshwater fish due to ich from guppies I brought home.

To me after all this agony, it is only common sense to quarantine and not risk the rest of my tank.

 

[nereefpat]

That does look like ich to me.

Your options depend on a few things. Any inverts (including corals) in the tank? You mentioned that you have ich medication. Which one?

 

[kevgib67]

Soak the fish food in Selcon, Vitachem and garlic extreme. With your fish in its best health they can beat this. That said, ich will be in your tank and rear it’s ugly head when the fish get stressed. You can just repeat but as previously mentioned the only way to eradicate ich is a hospital tank with copper and leaving the tank fish free for 72 days.

 

[bookeey517]

What other fish are in the tank with it?
Any invertebrates in the tank?

At the start of an infection, marine ich has no real overt symptoms, just white spots. The spots will come and go, but generally increase in numbers of days. New fish will develop spots, and eventually the number of ich trophonts can become so high that the disease progresses geometrically and the fish become overwhelmed. They then begin showing other symptoms and eventually die.

In some cases, the parasite never reaches the explosive growth phase, but that usually requires having a well established tank, a UV sterilizer, very careful management of stress in the fish, daily siphoning of the sand each morning, etc.

Jay

Hi jay, thanks for your reply.
other fish in the tank consist of maroon clownfish, humu humu, engineer goby and watchman goby. And as for inverts I just have a Few cleaner snails. It’s had this infection for near a week now and it’s acting perfectly normal. No slight signs of stress, exceptional eating and normal swimming. But one thing that I noticed today was that the white spots weren’t dots, they were salt crystal like protrusions actually coming out of the skin. I don’t think it’s ich, do you think it’s something worse?
thanks

 

[bookeey517]

Medics need your water parameters, is this a fairly new tank/cycled? A couple of more pictures in white light would be helpful. The first is a little fuzzy. If it is ich, you will need copper, a hospital tank and your DT will have to go fallow.


@Jay Hemdal

Some Helpful Hints When Posting or Responding to Threads in the Fish Disease Treatment and Diagnosis Section

Aquarium Fish Disease Problem Solving Determining the best course of action for a problem with your aquarium can be a difficult task. Even advanced aquarists will often need to seek the help of others for complicated or unique issues. Our intent here on Reef 2 Reef is to offer expert advice...

www.reef2reef.com

Hello and thanks for your reply.
My water perameters go as such:
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Nitrite: 5-10 ppm
Slt: 1.025 (a tad high bc water change day is tomorrow)
Phosphate: 0.25 ppm (I’m unsure if this is too high, I’ve gotten mixed signals from google)
Calcium: 450ppm (I’m like 60% sure this is accurate because the testing process for calcium is god awful
Ph: 8.1-8.2
Tank age: 3 months
Note: I no longer think he has ich. I say this because he’s had the spots for a while now (week or so) and no one else has got them. They are also not just spots, they are salt crystal like protrusions coming out of the skin.
Is this worse than ich?
Please help
Thank you

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi jay, thanks for your reply.
other fish in the tank consist of maroon clownfish, humu humu, engineer goby and watchman goby. And as for inverts I just have a Few cleaner snails. It’s had this infection for near a week now and it’s acting perfectly normal. No slight signs of stress, exceptional eating and normal swimming. But one thing that I noticed today was that the white spots weren’t dots, they were salt crystal like protrusions actually coming out of the skin. I don’t think it’s ich, do you think it’s something worse?
thanks

Ich can protrude like that. No other spots on any other fish? If not, there are a couple of other issues that can cause white spots. What you need to do is take another picture of the goby from the same angle 36 hours or so after the first one. Then compare the two photos. If the spots are in different locations and/or in different numbers, then this is probably ich. If the same spots are in the same location then it isn’t ich - could be mucus plugs or xenomas.
Jay

 

[bookeey517]

Ich can protrude like that. No other spots on any other fish? If not, there are a couple of other issues that can cause white spots. What you need to do is take another picture of the goby from the same angle 36 hours or so after the first one. Then compare the two photos. If the spots are in different locations and/or in different numbers, then this is probably ich. If the same spots are in the same location then it isn’t ich - could be mucus plugs or xenomas.
Jay

Hi again jay
I’m not completely sure if they are in the same spots as last time (42 hours ago) or not but here is a better view of the protrusions.

no other fish have any sighs of white spots or abnormal behavior at all.

another thing I should add is that when I got my two engineer gobbies from saltwaterfish.com (I highly recommend against doing business with them), one of the two gobbies was behind on growth. He was eating the same but growing not as much as the other one, I wasn’t even sure if he was growing at all.
He ended up acting really weird. He would rub himself against the ground a lot and stuff like that. Eventually he stopped eating and died.
I came to the conclusion that he had parasites and I thought for a second that maybe the neon goby got them from him but the engineer goby never had these white spots.
Thanks.

 

[bookeey517]

That does look like ich to me.

Your options depend on a few things. Any inverts (including corals) in the tank? You mentioned that you have ich medication. Which one?

The only inverts I have in my tank are some cleaner snails that live under the sand and a yellow polyp.
The medication I have on hand is API super ich cure
Thanks

 

[nereefpat]

The only inverts I have in my tank are some cleaner snails that live under the sand and a yellow polyp.
The medication I have on hand is API super ich cure
Thanks

API super ich cure is malachite green and nitrofurazone. The med that works in saltwater for marine ich is copper.

If you want to sacrifice some snails and yellow polyp, dropping to hyposalinity is a good option that does kill ich.

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Hi again jay
I’m not completely sure if they are in the same spots as last time (42 hours ago) or not but here is a better view of the protrusions.

no other fish have any sighs of white spots or abnormal behavior at all.

another thing I should add is that when I got my two engineer gobbies from saltwaterfish.com (I highly recommend against doing business with them), one of the two gobbies was behind on growth. He was eating the same but growing not as much as the other one, I wasn’t even sure if he was growing at all.
He ended up acting really weird. He would rub himself against the ground a lot and stuff like that. Eventually he stopped eating and died.
I came to the conclusion that he had parasites and I thought for a second that maybe the neon goby got them from him but the engineer goby never had these white spots.
Thanks.

That does look like ich to me. I don't think the engineer goby died from ich though. For a fish to die from ich, the tank needs to have a pretty heavy infestation, and the other engineer goby would have died as well.

Jay