What is this?

[Dave-T]

I have 3 Lyretail anthias, 2 Ocellaris clowns, a blue spot jawfish, and a melanarus wrasse in a 40 gallon QT. They’ve been there 3 weeks. I also had 2 more anthias, a magnificent foxface, and blackcap basslet that passed away. So things haven’t been going well in my first attempt at QT. I just got back from a 2 week vacation, and see these white marks on the anthias. It’s hard to tell for sure if the other fish are disease free, but I don’t see anything.
Is this ich? Some kind of fungus?

 

[Geebs19]

#fishmedic

 

[Jekyl]

Sounds like too much, too fast for a small tank. Appears to be ich though. As I'm not the best at this wait for the experts. I would start getting a hospital tank and proper meds ready though.

 

[Dave-T]

Thanks. This is a quarantine tank/hospital tank. I have treatment medicine to use, but I would prefer a diagnosis first. I believe the wrasse will not tolerate copper? I do have a second quarantine tank I could move the wrasse to….

 

[threebuoys]

What qt protocol have you used thus far?

 

[threebuoys]

At first glance these marks appear too large for ich or velvet. Continue to observe for more spots or spots moving.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ich and treat in quarantine with coppersafe or copper power at 2.25-2.25 for full 30 days and monitor with reliable copper test kits such as Hanna- no api brand

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Observational quarantine is almost always not the best course of action. It is much safer to treat the fish preventably than to chase after a disease once it gets started.
From what I can see is these are probably bite marks from another fish, or less likely, marks from flukes.
Jay

 

[Dave-T]

Observational quarantine is almost always not the best course of action. It is much safer to treat the fish preventably than to chase after a disease once it gets started.
From what I can see is these are probably bite marks from another fish, or less likely, marks from flukes.
Jay

Yes, that's what I've been doing. Observational quarantine. QT was cycled, and I've been monitoring ammonia levels. My fish sitter seemed to do a good job, although he was definitely overfeeding. Pretty decent algae bloom when I got home.

I was hesitant to add copper because I heard wrasses don't like it, but I'm now seeing that the melanauris should have been ok if I gradually increased copper. Live and learn. These are my first fish, and they appeared healthy when I got them. I haven't seen any aggression, really. The jawfish is ornery, but he stays on the bottom and the other fish stay away.

So I'm getting different advice here. Should I treat with copper? Something else? If it's just bite marks, should I just leave them as-is?

 

[threebuoys]

Since you are already in QT I would begin the copper treatment and run the full protocol. Just be aware that what you see currently may not actually be ich.

 

[nereefpat]

I have been always using Copper lately for any new fish. Copper Power or Coppersafe should be fine for most (all?) fish. It's fine for wrasses.

I don't think that's ich or velvet, because of the size and lack of anything on the fins.