Help identifying this disease...

[Curt2199]

I've had this Tomini Tang for a week and he seemed to be doing well. He was out swimming yesterday and last night (not more than a couple hourse later) I found him laying upside down on the bottom looking bad. I quickly moved him to the sump where he would go from laying on his side to swimming upright. I did a quick freshwater dip because I know some fish in the tank have a little ICH from recently switching tanks and he died shortly after. I'd like to see if people think this looks like a disease or possible a sting from my Gigantea carpet anemone.

 

[MrTuskfish]

This is a textbook of bad case of ich reaching lethal levels. . Ich, under the right conditions, can go from invisible to lethal in short order. FW dips do nothing for ich and your whole system has the parasite, not just the fish showing it. I sure would get your whole system ich -free before buying/losing more fish. Yeah, its a PITA. Sorry you had to learn the hard way; but the group that thinks you can indefinitely "manage" ich is simply a group waiting for a big disaster. (IMO & IME)

 

[AdamSabina]

Yep ich :-(. Don't dose any tank you ever plan on keeping inverts or coral in. Copper will kill it.

1.Good time to start that quarantine system. Or...

2. Buy Home Depot tubs $4.99each and an air pump so you can catch the fish and dose them separately.

3. Watch everything die.

I recommend #1 it's much better in the long run

 

[MrTuskfish]

A tank is safe to use with any corals & inverts after its been well rinsed; maybe run carbon, a Polyfilter, or Cuprisorb too. The idea that copper sticks to glass or silicone is an old myth that won't die.

 

[AdamSabina]

A tank is safe to use with any corals & inverts after its been well rinsed; maybe run carbon, a Polyfilter, or Cuprisorb too. The idea that copper sticks to glass or silicone is an old myth that won't die.

+1 absolutely agree. What I was trying to say is don't dose the display tank with all the rock and sand that will leach copper out of the water.

 

[MrTuskfish]

+1 absolutely agree. What I was trying to say is don't dose the display tank with all the rock and sand that will leach copper out of the water.

Right.

 

[Curt2199]

I've had ich in my tank for nearly a year. I spent the first 3-4 months fighting it by moving fish to a hospital tank and treating them with copper while leaving the display fallow. It still came back and I ended up loosing over $200 in fish due to the stress of the back and forth and different treatments. I finally stopped and just fed them well and used Kent's Garlic Extreme and new fish would break out with some cysts and then it'd go away. This didn't look like ich to me due to the white patches. Most of my fish that have gotten ich just have the cysts for a while and then they clear up and don't have it unless I move tanks, etc. or do something stressful. This guy was new and I guess maybe he was just too weak from the LFS. Either way, none of the other fish are having any ich problems.

 

[MrTuskfish]

I've had ich in my tank for nearly a year. I spent the first 3-4 months fighting it by moving fish to a hospital tank and treating them with copper while leaving the display fallow. It still came back and I ended up loosing over $200 in fish due to the stress of the back and forth and different treatments. I finally stopped and just fed them well and used Kent's Garlic Extreme and new fish would break out with some cysts and then it'd go away. This didn't look like ich to me due to the white patches. Most of my fish that have gotten ich just have the cysts for a while and then they clear up and don't have it unless I move tanks, etc. or do something stressful. This guy was new and I guess maybe he was just too weak from the LFS. Either way, none of the other fish are having any ich problems.

Stress doesn't often kill fish, ich does. Moving a fish to a HT for treatment, then back to the DT isn't going to hurt any reasonably healthy fish. There is no evidence that garlic does anything for ich infestations. , except possibly act as an appetite stimulant. FW dips will not help ich at all. If you have ich in your system, it will return. The only question is when. The blotches on the fish in the OP are common with fish that have recently died or are about to.

Looking at this pic again, I can't tell what's on the fish and whats on the glass.

 

[cngreg]

Fish can develop a resistance to the cryptocaryon tomites ( the swimming stage) but still harbor a subclinical population of the parasites (one or two cysts hiding in the gills at any time) and when you put a naive fish in it might get slammed. That said, I don't see the signs of disease on that tang but I see some patches that I often see with uronema (opportunistic ciliate protozoan that can infect a new fish that might have wounds or just really was unlucky to get infected by the parasite ) it's a statistical thing. just an opinion. It may be marine ich, don't live in denial, , but that sudden (maybe you didn't see the signs) is unusual.

 

[Curt2199]

Well my tangs and rabbitfish do have a few ich cysts at the moment and although they are all eating well, my atlantic blue juvenile is showing some odd spots now that do not look like anything that I've seen. I'm setting up a HT tonight to start a cupramine treatment but does this look like anything anyone else has seen. He does appear to have 3-4 ich cysts but he has these dark patches that look to be blue in color. He is acting a little lethargic but he is still eating. I fed him life spectrum pellets today, brine and mysis last night, and he's eaten some nori with garlic on it this morning.

 

[roenicknewf]

That looks like black ick ,which is actually a worm and needs to be treated with prazi pro

 

[Curt2199]

I fed them this morning before leaving and went home for lunch and the spots appear to have faded to be almost invisible. Is that characteristic of black ich?