Uh Oh, Possible Ich

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xRage10

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 29, 2010
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Lake Mary, Florida
Ok, so I get home from work tonight to discover that my Sailfin Tang is covered in little white dots. My clown is looking like he may be starting to develop them, but they're very few and very transparent, nothing solid white and not many at all. None of my other fish are showing it, but they all seem to be breathing pretty fast. Before I left for work, I added a new Koralia Evo powerhead for circulation, late last night I added new polyps (nuclear green and purple death) and earlier in the day yesterday I added a new longnose hawk fish as well as did about a 20% water change. Got my water tested before the WC and my LFS said it tested fine, and that they would just recommend a WC.

I'm stumped, I really am. I don't understand why the tang would be the only one to display the white dots while none of the other fish do. I've never had this issue before, so I honestly have no clue what it is nor what I should do. Is he just stressed because of the new powerhead (which is pretty powerful, to be honest) or is it really something to be concerned about? He's still eating fine and honestly looked fine with zero white spots when I left for work (about 10 hours ago), though he's been developing what's looked like scratches below his mouth and on the bottom of his body for the past week or two.

Any help or advice is greatly appreciated!!
 
Ich is caues by a parisite. The main reason most of our fish get it is stress. But not the only reason. When stressed, a fish can have a low immune system, there for contracting ich.
In saltwater fish, ich can be confused with oodinium disease.
They both cause the same problems, look alike in some ways when the fish gets it.

I myself found that doing a freshwater (RO/DI) dip on all my fish and coral when I get them is the best way to stop the tank from getting parasites.
I have also found that if for some reason your fish do contract ich, doing a freshwater (RO/DI) dip will help kill the parasite.
Do a dip for about a min or two.
May sometimes after a day, do the dip again. Sometimes repeated up to three days..

If after a week, you still have the issue.
you can do a copper treatment. But this is not the best thig in my opinion to do.
If overdosed, it can cause more harm than good. Cause problems with any coral you have or/and kill any inverts you have in the tank.

So in my opinon, just do a freshwater dip on your fish with RO/DI water.
repeat if needed.
 
fresh water dip will only relieve the fish temporally , it wont help eradicate whitespot from tank, uv will help control numbers only ,its hypo or copper or fishless tank , problem is its 50/50 what kills fish copper or protozoan. copper must be in hospital tank as with hypo. some fish have the ability to survive the infection alot depends on water quality, tank inmates, and whether the fish has contracted the whitespot before . in some cases you are better feeding garlic keeping fish well fed , reduce any stress,ie other fish picking on him and hope for the best, keeping in mind catching a fish and puting him in a strange tank is going to stress him more
 
Tangs are some of the fish indicator fish that you have cryptocaryon in a tank (ich is only a freshwater issue).
FW dip will knock them off the fish, but you need to break the life cycle in the tank if you want to get ahead of the problem.
Remove the hosts, or set up sterlization to kill it in the water column during it's early life stages.
 
Ok, well I'm afraid the worst has happened. Got home from school today to find that my sailfin tang and false perc clown were dead, and none of the other fish are looking good. I managed to get the longnose hawkfish (whom doesn't look bad, just breathing hard) and my two damsels (whom both look pretty bad) out and into a 10 gal QT for now, but I see no signs of my firefish even being in my aquarium (though I'm sure he is) and my gold head sleeper goby darts under a rock every time I move another, and I don't exactly have anywhere else to put the majority of the rock in the aquarium. Guess I'll just be spending my night trying to fish him out.

That being said, would cryptocaryon kill my tang and clown that quickly? The spots were only on the tang for about 12-15 hours and the clown never showed any true signs of being affected. I'm likely going to run back down to my LFS after my last class of the day to get my water tested again and decide what it is I need to do from there, but anything you guys have to say on the matter is greatly appreciated and I thank you for all the help you've already given.

I personally think the salinity was too high, lost my hydrometer so I'm not exactly capable of reading it, but I'm near positive it was over 1.026, which from my understanding, you shouldn't even go over in a reef tank. My tank was probably short almost four gallons of water when I did the WC and I never topped it off with freshwater first :\
 
Quick question, can high nitrates or high nitrites cause fish to stress that much and get cryptocaryon? When I went and got my water tested Sunday, they said my water parameters were fine and that they just recommended a water change. I went and got my water tested today and I believe the gentleman said that my nitrates apparently spiked after a 10 gallon water change and that that could have possibly been the cause of the increased stress level. Regardless I did a 5 gallon water change today. Should I do another water change, perhaps in the area of around another 10-15 gallons tomorrow? The gent at the LFS gave me some chems called Ich-X and said to do it in half doses daily for the next three days and see if the fish currently in the aquarium improve at all, so I might try that. Any other opinions?
 
I am no expert but I would not recommend medicating your display tank. That is what a QT is for.IMHO If you need to dose your dt use an immune support/ stimulant.
 
nitrates are the end of the cycle, fish can tolerate high nitrate short term but if you had a nitrate spike you would allso have had a ammomia/ nitrite spike both are deadly to fish short term, highish ammonia wiil cause whitespot if it does not kill the fish form ammonia poisoning, spikes dont happen from water changes there must be a cause such as overfeeding a new tank, fish dying and going unoticed. any medication needs to be in a hospital tank ,i have not heard of ichx, do another large water change 50% but add water slowly, are the fish still eating ? good luck i hope your fish survive
 
High nitrite is something I'd be worried about more than high nitrate.

If Ich X is a medication for ich, it's for the freshwater disease - not what you have. You'll need to drop salinity and look into a copper based medication.
 
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