Fungus?

[brandoniscool]

Got some fish from an excellent online dealer. Almost all were in amazing shape and were fine in QT for three weeks. When I released them to the main tanks a Mandarin goby developed fungus on his fin.

Was lucky enough to catch him in our 180 and he's in a hospital tank. No other fish in that tank have developed symptoms.

Now an orchard dottyback in our 120 has a skin problem. Wasn't able to get a good pic though.

The mandarin clearly had cottony raised goo on his skin. It was solid white. The dottyback has a patchy white disk with no cottony strands. It's not raised, almost looks like an abrasion.

I think it would be almost impossible to catch him without removing most of the rock and coral in the tank. The other fish look great and everyone's eating and seems normal. Water parameters are good, I'll post specifics today when I got to my school.

Any advice? I'll bite the bullet and pull him out of he'll endanger other fish but I'd rather not disturb the coral if I can get away with it.

 

[snorvich]

I would suggest that you increase your quarantine time to at least 4 weeks. Were these fish acquired from a vendor that runs copper in their system?

 

[brandoniscool]

I would suggest that you increase your quarantine time to at least 4 weeks. Were these fish acquired from a vendor that runs copper in their system?

thanks for your help, I will take your advice about quarantining and yes I believe the vendor does do that. My friend Eli from Quality Marine saw the post and contacted me with help. He has considerable experience and has always provided good counsel. After talking things over with him, I have decided to make sure the tank is as healthy as possible from a water quality and feeding standpoint and wait. I'll post updates in a couple of days.

Thanks to Quality Marine and the reef central community for their help.

 

[snorvich]

Copper can mask various issues which tend to show up in the 3-4 week time frame. Your images are not definitive but based on the time line, I have concerns.