ich...or not?

[bveselka]

I recently aquired a 125 gallon established reef tank. It came with 4 fish- large purple tang, flame angel, clown, and royal gamma. my question is this. the guy mentioned that he had problems with ich in the past. fish looked great when i came to pick up the tank and looked great the first week at my home. no signs of stress. then one day i noticed small white specks on the tang and angel. well my first thought was ich. then i started thinking...I had mixed some water to add to raise my water level- not top off- actually mixed salt water because i felt the tank needed a higher level. anyway, the salt that he sent with the tank was not my normal oceanic- rather coralife. I felt that the salt did not mix very well and when i added the water to the sump, i could see lots of (what I thought was) undissolved salt shooting into the tank. the next day the fish had the spots. then a day or 2 later they were gone??? could the salt have stuck to the fish? Reason i am asking is because i recently (like a day ago) did a water change and the same thing happened. weird...I know. none of the other fish have these spots. i will have to check to see if they are still there today- because they showed up last night.

 

[bveselka]

Also- if it is determined to be ich- is my 24 gallon nano cube too small to house my 1 purple tang, 2 clowns, 1 royal gramma, 1 flame angel, 1 diamond goby, 4 damsels, 1 yellow clown goby for the recommended time to rid my main tank of ich??? i have no live rock in the nano so no place to hide!!!

 

[Gwynhidwy]

I would say the nano is definitely too small for those fish. And unfortunately it is probably ich that you are seeing. It is normal for the ich spots to come and go, sometimes it takes a day or two, sometimes a week.

I haven't ever heard of salt sticking to fish, but maybe someone with more experience has. I'm not sure why salt would stick to fish and even if it did I believe it would dissolve more quickly than two days. Best of luck!

 

[bveselka]

I know...i know. I was in denial. I am taking care of the problem today. Thanks fpr your input, i do appreciate it.

 

[Gwynhidwy]

I understand about the denial. It really is a bummer when you realize you have ich. Its so much more pleasant to hope that its something else. Of course it may be, unfortunately waiting makes the risk of losing fish much greater. I hope your fish get well soon!

 

[Percula9]

Sometimes bubbles can stick to the slime coat, it can look like ich.