?ich like spots for 2 hours?

[rioshilo]

This morning when I turned on the lights I noticed ich like spots on the goat fish and the arc eye hawk. The goat had about a dozen white spots spread out over the body and the fins. The hawk had slightly fewer spots spread over the body and fins. No other fish had visible spots. All their activity, eating, swimming, breathing etc... is normal. I have not seen ich in person before but have researched it a lot on RC and other sites, and it looked like a minor outbreak of ich. However, this is the weird thing. When I looked at the fish about 2 hrs later there were no signs of spots and the fish looked perfect. I did spend quite a bit of time watching the fish last night and I know that the spots were not there last night. Can the visible portion of the ich cycle be that short? There is not even any signs of scars or anything where the spots were. Water parameters look great, and the only recent change were some frags added last weekend. I didn't get any pictures, however I didn't expect the spots to be gone in 2 hrs... I'm looking around for a larger qt tank. Pretty sure the 20g is not gonna be enough for all 10 fish if I need to fallow the display.



What are the spots?

 

[paulamrein]

Could be micro bubbles that that cling to the fish's mucus. They have a tendency to look a lot like parasites. But, if you haven't QT any of the fish since you had them, there wouldn't be anything wrong with doing it now. A separate system gives you time to observe, and it's been my reasoning that if your fish was in any holding tank before yours (obviously, unless you netted them yourself on a dive) than it has parasites. It's a safe bet considering that no fish is as healthy as it was in the ocean coming from your LFS and 9.9 out of 10 LFS has parasites in their holding tanks. You would probably have a better chance at winning the lottery twice than to have 10 fish in your system without any ailment at all. Also, just generally asking. How big is your system, and how long have you had all ten, and how were the fish spaced out in introduction? Not saying you did anything out of the ordinary just curious.

 

[rioshilo]

Micro bubbles? Could be I guess... I looked again this morning, earlier though. There were more spots on these two fish, and some also on the flame angels. They could have these every morning and I just never noticed before. I watched them for a while, saw a couple come off the hawk and float away. To where I don't know, too small and too hard to follow. Within an hour all spots were gone. I couldn't see anything visible on my lighter colored fish.

The tank is 130g and has been established for a yr and a half. The first year it was under the care of my brother inlaw. During that time the first 6 fish were introduced. Arc eye hawkfish, Orange shoulder tang, Large maroon clown, Niger Trigger, and two yellow tailed damsels. He moved away and I inherited this free tank Since then we have added the Goat fish, Sunset wrasse, and the flame angel pair. Did not start qt until we got the angels. The fish that we introduced were spaced out in 1-2 mth intervals.

 

[paulamrein]

See where this takes you, obviously if something breaks out it will be staying on the fish for quite some time. When that happens QT all fish and leave the tank fishless for atleast 6 weeks. No parasite has that quick of a cycle so my guess would be either microbubbles or you aren't seeing them in the same spot. Strangely enough ich can move throughout the fish at any given time. And the spots you see are exit and entry wounds so those shouldn't move.