Help needed! Whats this?
 

Hippo Tang, got some white spots on his body 2 days ago. Is this Ich? What do I need to do? Will it heal on his own? The fish looks doing ok.
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/dat...m/IMG_9026.jpg
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/dat...m/CRW_8999.jpg

looks like ich.. do ou have a cleaner shrimp in your tank? are thereother fish in your tank? I believe there are treatments you can get at most LFS

Yes, it does look like ich. Before somebody tells you to feed him garlic or dose Medication X please understand that the only two methods proven to actually KILL the ich parasite: hyposalinity and copper - both of which are very reef UNsafe.

So you have two choices:

A) Remove ALL your fish (because if it's on one, the parasite is most likely on the others) and place them in a QT and treat with either copper or hyposalinity. Then leave your display tank fallow (ie. fishless) for at least 4 weeks for the parasite to die because it lacks any fish hosts.

B) Learn to live with it in the tank. Feed well, keep up with water changes etc. etc so the fish are happy and unstressed.

Most people end up doing option B which leave the parasite in a chronic low level state of infection. Just because you can't see the spots does not mean it's gone. The spots are only one part of the life cycle just like you'll have the flu virus for several days before symptoms appear.

Everything usually goes OK until there's a major stressor in the tank and then the parasite will reappear with a vengeance.

Adding garlic to the diet does no harm and will stimulate appepite (which is good for any sick creature), but there's no scientific evidence that it actually kills ich.

Thanks for your quick reply. There are 2 cleaner shrimps and some fish. Tank only 5 weeks old.

Thanks for your words, learn a lot from you.
I don't really want to get another 30-40 Gal tank just for QT. Neither let the fish die, or let my wife kills me.
Does Ich will hurt my corals? Thats what most I care about.

No. "ich" won't affect your coral in any way. In fact, the only risk to your coral comes when you attempt to "cure" the "ich" with some miracle cure that you put in the tank.

uv sterilizer helps alot..... believe it or not ... i also use red slime remover and that killed off all the ich

?

Things like cleaner shrimp and UV filters may be useful in controlling, but not eliminating ich.

Not sure about red slime remover - red slime (cyanobacteria) is a bacteria. The remover works because it is an antibiotic (erythromycin). Ich is not a bacteria and therefore should not be affected by the red slime remover.

Many so called ich "cures" are only claimed to be so because the aquarist sees the telltale spots disappear after usage of said cure. As mentioned, this is most likely the parasite simply cycling into another stage of its life cycle which is microscopic. It often remains so until another breakout when the fish become stressed for whatever reason and the parasite multiplies again and becomes visible.

I am in the process of adding finally adding fish to my tank. I hope you don't mind, but I'm trying to learn how people add fish to their tanks.

You said that your tank is 5 weeks old. How many fish do you have in it. Did you quarantine any of them? How long have you had the Hippo Tang?

Sorry I'm not any help, only questions.

+1
thank god someone else is sick of hearing the old feed garlic get a cleaner shrimp post,years of hearing those usally makes me skip over threads about ich,
ive done hypo and found it to work but annoying and more difficult, i say buy a decient sized qt and use seachem cuprarmine for 2 weeks to get rid of it.
http://www.seachem.com/Products/prod...Cupramine.html

Thanks for all you guys!!! I'm getting little bit more understand and confused now.
If I'm set up a QT, do I need catch all the fishies out, or just one fish that shows infection(only hippo tang shows the sopts on his body)? Catch all the fishies seems too hard for me.
As "fkshiu" said,the parasite will die if it lacks any fish hosts..., So if some fishies still in the tank, the parasite will not going to die anyway, when I put QT fish beck to the display tank, it will get the ICH again?
crying......

Removing all the fish and leaving the tank fallow for 6 weeks is the only way to remove ich completely. Unfortunately if you go through all the work of having an ich free tank and want to keep it that way it means quarantining everything "wet" that you add to the tank (fish, rock, snails, corals, macroalgae ect.) in the future.

I would like to share my experience with anyone who try to get help here, like myself.

I have 7 fishies in my 5 weeks old tank. Non of them has been quarantined, the HT was putted in my tank 1(1/2) week ago.
Please check my tank journey for' 95 gallon WAVE tank', you even can see some pics.

take him out and treat him with seachem cupramine for 14+days in a QT.

I've had better success with organicure (copper sulphate and formalin). Seams to work a little quicker than cupramine and helps guard against any secondary infections. Just my experience though, cupramine is a good product.

IMO, if the fish are healthy and unstressed (as they should be in any tank) they will handle the ich and it won't get out of control. Your fish is new, and would have been stressed during his acclimation to the new tank, hence why he got 'Ich'. I personally wouldn't worry about him, keep him healthy and it will go away.

It seems that people freak right out when they see this, but it doesn't seem to hurt the fish much as long as everything else is in good shape... by this I mean great water quality, regular water changes, a varied and healthy diet appropriate to the species of fish you are keeping, and minimal stress factors (aggression and bullying, stable water conditions, a regular photoperiod, etc.). The fish recover from the stress, fight off the infection, and everything is good. IMO again, many people heavily overstock their tanks in terms of fish, which directly correlates to maintenance on the tank, and when that maintenance isn't performed once for one reason or another, the fish get sick because of overcrowding and poor water quality. Healthy, happy fish = fish that don't get sick from minor infections, or are strong enough to fight them.

Try not to overstock, and remember that large fish eat more and create more waste. Other than that, as was said before, you can quarantine everything for 6 weeks after clearing your tank completely of your current Ich problem...

My personal experience with ich is from freshwater fish though, so take what I've said with a grain of salt.:redface:

I've started to feed this guy very well since this happen. After about a week, it's recovered without any treatment. The white spots on his body are almost clean. Thanks for your great words!