Could these spots be ich?

berretta · 10-16-2004, 08:22 PM

75 gal SW tank
2 percula clowns
1 sand-shifting goby
1 dozen hermits
1 dozen small snails
3 turbo snails
2 millenium 3000 power filters
2 maxi-jets 1200
3 bags live sand (fuji pink)
1 bag live crushed coral
1 orbit power compact light (4x65days, 4x65actnics, 4 lunar bulbs)
6 pounds live rock

I am new to SW so please dont think im stupid. I noticed about a week ago that my 2 clowns were rubbing themselves against my maxi-jet and my base rock. I thought nothing of it at first other than it was kind of cute that they would do that. Today I purchased 2 pieces of live rock to get my reef started and noticed white spots on both clowns. I am assuming that this is ich (of which I hope I am wrong). I have read post on other sites and the consences is that I will have to quarantine the clowns and the goby for a period of 4-8 weeks. I am going to try to post a picture on here if at all possible (if I can figure it out). My question is that I dont have a QT tank and was wondering what would be the difference between QT the fish and medicate them as opposed to just medicating them in the tank I have now? As I said before, I am new to SW, but it just seems redundant to take the fish out and put them in a seperate tank and medicate them for this problem when I could medicate them in the tank they are on now. I know this probably sounds stupid and please dont treat me as such. I am just trying to get some information for treating my fish. My ph-8.2 ammonia-0 nitrites and nitrates-0 phosphates-0 salinity 1.023 temp-80.1 Just introduced the goby about a week ago also. Could this have cause the ich?

ouccmich · 10-16-2004, 08:57 PM

I am new also and had the same question. Everyone said that it is bad for the LR to do this..

Here is a quote from a response that I got (from JennM):
"You MUST NOT treat the main tank. Most if not all medications that are effective against Ich, will certainly kill your inverts and ruin your live rock. Good on you for having a quarantine tank! Should be bare bottomed with plastic decor that can be cleaned and sterilized...

The key to a cure is figuring out what is causing the outbreak in the first place, and fixing that. Fish get sick when they are stressed. Were the sick fishes being harrassed at all? Any new additions recently? All your equipment functioning fine? The "silent killer" is often found to be stray voltage in the tank - if you have a voltage meter, test your tank and make sure that no electricity is leaking into the tank.

When you remove the stressor - whatever that might be, the fish should stop getting sick.

If you determine your problem to be ich, treating in the Q tank with Cupramine is what I'd suggest, I have had very good results with it. If you go with that you'll need a test kit to monitor the dose, and I like Red Sea Copper tests. Easier to do and read than Seachem's test, and not all copper tests will read the stuff in Cupramine, but Red Sea tests do."

I did check the voltage (my father's an electrician and had a voltage meter)....my voltage was high and I bought a ground that neutralized it. How long have you had your tank up and running? The fish could have got ick from the LFS (depending on how long you've had them) I suppose. Other than that, I read that ick is always in the tank, the fish get ick though when they become stressed out. HTH. Anyone else have any thoughts?

berretta · 10-16-2004, 09:09 PM

Thank you ouccmich. I dont think that the fish have been harrassed at all. I did add a sand-shifting goby last week, maybe that caused the ich. All of my equipment is running fine but I have never checked the voltage like you said, maybe I'll try that too. My tank is 7 weeks old now. Sorry I thought I posted that information. Also have been reading about hyposalinity treatments. Could someone explain to me about this option?