white blotches on toby puffer

[captjacksparrow]

hi so im not sure exactly how urgent this is but i was watching my toby puffer today and i noticed a white splotch along his side (not huge, but enough that its obvious). there are also some new lil white spots on his fin. should i be concerned? how should i treat this?
i have a 75 gallon FOWLR tank with a toby puffer, two clownfish, a longnose hawkfish, a peppermint wrasse, a coral beauty, and an emperor angel. Toby is the only one with the splotch. 2 opposing 200 gal/hour filters and a standard white/blue light, been up and running for 3.5 months with no issues. thanks in advance!

 

[Crabs McJones]

Can you post a picture to help with diagnosis?

 

[captjacksparrow]

 

[captjacksparrow]

pardon my terrible photography

 

[Old Fritz]

It's kinda hard to tell what those white splotches are without a better picture, but if you have a phone with a mediocre camera like I do it can be hard to get.
If we just look at the white spots we can probably confirm ich. However the white splotches have me worried that it might be velvet, but again its hard to tell from the photo. Those are the most likely disease, You should treat with copper if possible if not there are a few different types of medication you could try. Try looking up pictures and symptoms of marine velvet and see if it matches what your fish currently has.

pardon my terrible photography

 

[captjacksparrow]

thank you! do you know if i need to worry about the meds affecting any of the other fish?

 

[Old Fritz]

If copper yes because it is generally more toxic to different types of fish and will kill any invert you have. If you dont have a quarantine tank make sure medication is reef safe . Also if ich raise the temperature of your tank to shorten the ich lifespan

 

[captjacksparrow]

ok thank you so much really good to know. sorry to add another question but how did it get in my tank/how do I prevent this in the future?

 

[Old Fritz]

the easiest thing to do is assume all your fish have ich. When I worked at a fish store we didn't quarantine (most places don't) and we treated the tanks when they first arrived for a week. A quarantine system will save you the headache of dealing with contagious diseases, and treating tanks. What happened once to me was I didn't realize my tank had ich in it because my fish's immune system was fighting it off and my salinity was at 1.020 and I had a friend do a water change for me when I was out of town and I came back the next day to every fish covered in ich and the salinity at 1.025. Sometimes just messing with water parameters can weaken a fish long enough to allow ich to take hold of the fish. As for how you got it it was probably from a fish you got and it can live in water for about two months without a host, so it might've been sitting in the water and just latched onto your puffer, puffers are pretty susceptible to ich so it doesn't surprise me that he is the one that got it.

 

[captjacksparrow]

thank you

 

[Old Fritz]

Also I don't normally recommend this for ich, but you may want to try doing a freshwater dip on the puffer to see if anything happens with those splotches, here's a guide if you haven't done it before . The reason I dont recommend it for ich is because ich once on the fish has a very small window of opportunity to kill it. Once its on your fish it is basically immune to any treatment, You mostly kill it during its phase just hanging out in the water column or vacuuming it out of your substrate. But I would give it a try and see if anything happens. Be sure to keep an eye on it just in case it starts to go into shock or something, it should swim around like normal and should never lie on its side.

 

[captjacksparrow]

i will try that. he hasn't shown any of those symptoms, but he has been itching himself against my live rock a lot, is that a problem?

 

[Old Fritz]

that's a symptom of ich and velvet, it's literally trying to scratch the parasite away

i will try that. he hasn't shown any of those symptoms, but he has been itching himself against my live rock a lot, is that a problem?

 

[captjacksparrow]

k makes sense

 

[Maritimer]

That does look like ich ...

Raising the temperature works very, very well for freshwater ich, to the point where no further treatment is needed in some cases, but seems to have little effect on marine "ich" (actually Cryptocaryon irritans).

Copper is _not_ recommended for puffers (see this handy-dandy chart: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fish-and-treatment-guidelines-with-chart.283450/#post-3449648 ) - use TTM (Tank Transfer Method) or CP (Chloroquine Phosphate) to treat this fellow. Additionally, he's very thin ... see if you can get him on a solid, healthy diet.

~Bruce

 

[Old Fritz]

That does look like ich ...

Raising the temperature works very, very well for freshwater ich, to the point where no further treatment is needed in some cases, but seems to have little effect on marine "ich" (actually Cryptocaryon irritans).

Copper is _not_ recommended for puffers (see this handy-dandy chart: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fish-and-treatment-guidelines-with-chart.283450/#post-3449648 ) - use TTM (Tank Transfer Method) or CP (Chloroquine Phosphate) to treat this fellow. Additionally, he's very thin ... see if you can get him on a solid, healthy diet.

~Bruce

That’s a good point, cupramine works well for copper sensitive fish and I’ve used it on 3 puffers without issue in the past. But there are other treatments if you want to play it safe.

Also temperature was found to speed up marine ich life cycle, but that alone won’t kill it

 

[4FordFamily]

That does look like ich ...

Raising the temperature works very, very well for freshwater ich, to the point where no further treatment is needed in some cases, but seems to have little effect on marine "ich" (actually Cryptocaryon irritans).

Copper is _not_ recommended for puffers (see this handy-dandy chart: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/fish-and-treatment-guidelines-with-chart.283450/#post-3449648 ) - use TTM (Tank Transfer Method) or CP (Chloroquine Phosphate) to treat this fellow. Additionally, he's very thin ... see if you can get him on a solid, healthy diet.

~Bruce

Agree. The splotches could be a myriad of things but I’d treat ich first. If they start to turn red it’s probably an infection and I would source kanaplex, Metroplex, and furan 2 just in case. Secondary bacterial infections are common.