Butterfly with spots (Marine Ich?)

[inktomi]

Hello -

Over the last day or two my Tinkeri Butterflyfish has developed some white raised bumps - at first on it's fins, and then now also on it's body. See attached photos.

I have several other fish - clownfish, anthias, tang - none of which show symptoms (and none of which have ever shown symptoms).

Today is the first day that I noticed the spots on my fish, after a lengthy battle with some random algaes in my tank. I did stir up quite a bit of algae bits in the water today.

The butterfly seems to act normally, swimming, using it's fins, eating, following me around begging for food. It isn't scratching on rock or other items in the tank, however it does seem to "stretch" it's fins - dorsal spines/etc - and shake from time to time. It doesn't appear to be breathing particularly hard, and is all over the tank top-to-bottom, shade and light. It's colors are fine, eyes are clear. It is eating normally - frozen mysis, rod's reef, and other frozen foods (I feed a large variety).

I keep my tank at 1.026 using a refractometer, and the tank has been up for several years.

The last fish that I added was a Tomini Tang from the Diver's Den, quarantined for 1 week. All other fish are swimming and acting normally.

Of course my first assumption is Ich that came in somehow - but wouldn't that infect more than one fish? And shouldn't the butterfly be scratching if that's the cause?

 

[inktomi]

As an additional bit of information, this fish has been in my care since 1/16/2014. When I recieved it, I did note two greyish spots on the tail that look more or less exactly like what I see today - however LiveAquaria and myself wrote them off as possible rough shipping and the fish recovered without any additional spots appearing. This is the first time since and obviously they're not just on the tail fin anymore.

 

[Reefsi]

Don't know if it is the particles in the water or not, but my answer is it surely looks like ich to me.

 

[snorvich]

The last fish that I added was a Tomini Tang from the Diver's Den, quarantined for 1 week.

I cannot tell from the pictures. However a 1 week quarantine is insufficient. When was this fish added to your display tank?

 

[inktomi]

The tang was added around 4/9/2014. It has never shown any signs of any infection.

After reading today, my new quarantine will be 30 days..

I do have a 75 gallon stock tank that I can set up as a full-tank hospital to treat Ich, if that's the most logical explanation. I agree, it does LOOK like Ich - but I don't really understand how only the butterfly would show symptoms. Of course, I know anything is possible..

 

[Reefsi]

2 things.
1. If your going to setup a QT make it as small as possible. I go with a 29g, easy to have the water on hand for full water changes and easy to observe.
2. The tang may have been healthy and not shown any signs of ich but still may have been on him. When he was introduced it stressed the butterfly out and he contracted ich. He may have had it the whole time and when you introduced the tang it stressed him and the parasite began to take over.

Also I would QT all fish and go fallow for 8-12 weeks to completely rid of this parasite.

 

[inktomi]

My options for QT are a 30g tank (normally what I use, short term or single fish QT), or a 75g stock tank (bought to house a grown tang while I rehomed it when I got the butterfly). I'd have to move the following fish out:

1 Spotted Mandarin
1 Blue Spotted Jawfish
1 Lyretail Anthias
3 Pictillis Anthias
2 Sunburst Anthias
2 Clownfish
1 Tomini Tang
1 Tinkeri Butterfly <-- this is the only one showing symptoms

With that amount of fish to remove, surely the stock tank with an assortment of PVC is a better choice from a stress perspective?

 

[Reefsi]

I don't want to feed you the wrong information but the sure bet would be to go fallow. Personally I would try to remove the one showing the symptoms QT him and monitor all the other fish. If the other fish begin to show symptoms then you have to go the fallow option to completely rid of this problem.

 

[inktomi]

Isn't Ich frequently infecting gills where it can't be seen as well? In that case, I think, if we think Ich I'd rather be sure and move everyone out.

The ones I worry about are the jawfish and the mandarin. Luckily, the mandarin is captive bred from ORA and does eat small pellets.

 

[Rea17]

Yes, you'll want to remove all of the fish for treatment. While DD is a great source of fish, I've had a few through that facility that came with ich, flukes, and even velvet! Lesson: ALWAYS quarantine new fish for a full qt period (8 weeks), no matter how good the source. Most fish simply aren't there long enough for a thorough observation and treatment, and LA recommends quarantining DD fish as well.

I agree with using the stock tank if possible, keep it well aerated and cover it with something to keep the jawfish and anthias in.

 

[inktomi]

I will stop by Petco tomorrow and buy some Cupramine & a test kit. I also need to go to Lowes and get several sizes of PVC pipe & elbows for hides. The ones I have are all adult-tang sized..

From the looks of this, I'm not in an emergency situation - so I feel like starting this on Tuesday is ok. It may take a couple days to catch all the fish, though luckily the butterfly likes to follow me around and watch what I'm doing in the tank. In theory, the sickest fish should be out the first day without crazy additional stress.

 

[inktomi]

I have all of my fish caught and moved over into a 75 gallon stock tank with random PVC "rubble" at the bottom for hides. Very nerve racking having them all there with nothing but water changes to keep water quality up!

I'm slowly ramping Cupramine up over a few days till I get into the 0.35 - 0.4 range, since I saw that 0.35 is the minimum effective dosage for ich. Then I'll keep it there for the bottle's recommended 14 days with a water change every other day (and an associated test/redose/test to keep meds at the proper level).

Once the 14 days are up, I'll add a hagen canister filter to the stock tank and keep the fish in there till early August. That should be more than enough time to ensure that my display is free of ich.

In a very perverted way, this is a blessing in disguise. In late July my new AGE 225 will be here, so I have already caught all my fish and have a tank set up to seed new marco rock in. The plan is to go completely fresh in the new tank to avoid the algae, and, of course - I'll be doing extended quarentines on all my fish from here on out.

I've also thought about the best way to prevent frags from bringing things in. My plan so far, besides never allowing anyone else's water in the tank, is going to be to dip the frag plugs in hydrogen peroxide just up to the surface where the coral is for a few seconds. Then a freshwater rinse dip, and into acclimation. A coral QT tank is, unfortunately, beyond my budget =\