Is this ich???

[bat21]

Neon Goby. All of a sudden today looks covered in ich. Or it's a bunch of scraped scales. But it looks bad. The last wet item added to the tank was a shipment of turbo and trochus snails from live aquaria on June 10th.

Everyone including him is eating and behaving normally. There is not a single spot on any of the other 8 fish. Just this one. I have had him for over a year, and I know their lifespans are only 1-2 years. But this came out of nowhere. Please tell me it could be something else. What should I do???? I'm freaking out.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

That is ich


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[bat21]

So the snails brought ich into my tank, and nothing showed up for 3 weeks, and its only on one fish. So what do I have to do now? Transfer all of the fish into another tank and do hyposalinity? And leave them in the new tank for 72 days? Tank transfer for 9 fish seems like a daunting task. Is hypo just as effective?

Is there any reason to just remove this one fish? Or that's pointless since its in the tank.

What would you guys do here?

 

[madweazl]

Could have been in the tank far longer and everything was just healthy enough to no succumb to it. If you are doing hypo-salinity, there would be no reason to transfer the fish. TTM probably isnt a realistic method for you.

If you can catch the fish, you can treat it and monitor the others to see how they react.

 

[bat21]

Could have been in the tank far longer and everything was just healthy enough to no succumb to it. If you are doing hypo-salinity, there would be no reason to transfer the fish. TTM probably isnt a realistic method for you.

If you can catch the fish, you can treat it and monitor the others to see how they react.

Catching the fish is going to be really tough. So you're saying to just do hypo on the main tank? Would that kill the ich or just cure the current incarnation of the lifecycle that is on the actual fish?

Does it being a fowlr give me an advantage to be able to run hypo for a much longer period without worrying about killing any corals? Or do I still have to run it fallow to get rid of the ich.

Need some expert opinions here on what my best route of attack is. I have no corals, just fish, shrimp, crabs, and snails.

 

[ThRoewer]

Neon gobies are notorious ich magnets. I'm not sure why, but it could be that they like cooler water than what they find in reef tanks.

Ich can take weeks if not months to show. It can also slowly fade away if the fish are otherwise healthy, fit and not overly stressed.

Hyposalinity in a DT is risky and you may need to keep it going for up to 3 months. The biggest risk is a mass die-off of algae and micro life.
For that reason I would only treat in a hospital tank.

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[Jeff4777]

Oh man I got 2 neon gobies and 1 sharknose. Keep us posted, good luck.

 

[bat21]

Neon gobies are notorious ich magnets. I'm not sure why, but it could be that they like cooler water than what they find in reef tanks.

Ich can take weeks if not months to show. It can also slowly fade away if the fish are otherwise healthy, fit and not overly stressed.

Hyposalinity in a DT is risky and you may need to keep it going for up to 3 months. The biggest risk is a mass die-off of algae and micro life.
For that reason I would only treat in a hospital tank.

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I started with dry rock only. So my tank has very little micro life compared to tanks with true live rock. I also live in an apartment and setting up a hospital tank for 9 fish might simply not be in the cards for me. But I do think,even though I know and understand the risks, that my particular DT is well suited to handle a hypo treatment.

That said, and the timing of this stinks, I'm going away on Wednesday for a week. So at least right now I have no actual choice but to do nothing.

Should I lower the salinity a little bit over the next 36 hours? Not hypo levels, but would it help the fish fight it if I got it down to 1.018-1.020? I hate to make a change like that without being there to observe, but I also don't want any of my fish to die.

 

[ThRoewer]

If it's a fish only tank, lowering the salinity is not a problem. In fact, if you don't plan on adding any inverts, I would just keep it in that range permanently.

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[bat21]

If it's a fish only tank, lowering the salinity is not a problem. In fact, if you don't plan on adding any inverts, I would just keep it in that range permanently.

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When you say inverts, does that include shrimp/crabs/snails? Or are you referring to corals etc. only.

 

[ThRoewer]

Anything that's not a fish.

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[bat21]

Anything that's not a fish.

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So going down to 1.019 range would endanger all of my shrimp, crabs and snails. I'm left with no choice but to just go on my vacation and hope for the best over the next week. I can withstand a loss of my neon goby, because I know he has a short lifespan to begin with and I've had him over a year at this point. But if I get a call from my fish sitter about any of my other fish being sick or dead it is really going to ruin my trip. GRRRRR, why did this have to rear its head right now?!?!?

When I get back I'll have to make a decision on hypo. Either I move all of my inverts to a temporary tank and hypo the display, or vice versa. Either scenario would have to be for the full fallow period to allow the ich to die off in the non-hypo tank. I assume you would advise treating the fish with hypo in a hospital tank, but besides the hurculean task of catching 9 different fish, I would need to set up a new 20-30 gallon tank (for 9 fish to live for 3 months), whereas I could get away with probably a 10 gallon to house the inverts for that time period, not to mention they would be much easier to catch and move than the fish.

Or I just live with ich in my display. My fish are all fat and healthy (or were until this goby suddenly succumbed to ich seemingly out of nowhere). I also have no idea how the ich got in or when it got in. So that part is really frustrating. If I could somehow know that most of the fish have withstood the parasite for a long time, I'd feel better about things. But if it came in with the snails 3 weeks ago, then I'd be much more worried about more fish getting sick. Everything was going so well!!! :facepalm::facepalm:

Do you think it would be bad for my marriage if I canceled a vacation, threw thousands of nonrefundable dollars down the drain, so that I could stay home and deal with the fish tank I already spend too much time dealing with?

 

[ThRoewer]

Many crabs, shrimp and snails may handle 1.018 if you lower the salinity slowly over weeks. The thing they can't handle are rapid salinity changes.

 

[bat21]

Ok. When I get back I'll do it slowly, unless other fish get sick, in which case I'll take a more aggressive approach with a hospital tank and hypo.

Is there any chance at all that it might not be ich? Or is that 100% conclusive from the photos? He's still behaving perfectly healthy and there is not a single spot on any other fish.

Thank you for your help.

 

[ThRoewer]

I would say that it's ich. Back in Germany I've never seen these fish clean - all always looked like the one in your pictures, covered in ich. Also, all books I had at the time said that they are ich prone.
It may of course be that they have a disease that looks like ich, but only affects them. But I think that's highly unlikely.

Though I've seen some super large ones at a LFS recently and they looked clean.

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[bat21]

I would say that it's ich. Back in Germany I've never seen these fish clean - all always looked like the one in your pictures, covered in ich. Also, all books I had at the time said that they are ich prone.
It may of course be that they have a disease that looks like ich, but only affects them. But I think that's highly unlikely.

To speak on this, and to give an update on my tank, it's been 3 weeks now, and I am still not sure that I am dealing with ich. The symptoms pictured originally in this thread, on my neon goby, change from day to day. Two days ago, the goby looked completely clean and healthy. Then yesterday he looked awful, like in the photos. Now today he looks way better, not quite as good as two days ago, but drastically better than yesterday.

Now, I have also, obviously, been very closely observing every fish for any signs of disease. And on a couple fish, I THOUGHT there was a spot or two, here and there, but it would go away the next day, or it was just nothing, and I'm just looking so closely so often, that I find any little tiny thing and assume it's a symptom. But, what I am sure of is this:

1) The neon goby is the only fish that has looked (symptom-wise) anywhere close to the pictures
2) His appearance (white spots/marks) changes on a daily basis
3) The neon goby, or any fish in the tank, has not once been observed flashing
4) Every fish has continued to eat 100%
5) No fish has changed behavior in any observable way in the 3 weeks since symptoms first appeared

What do you guys think about all that?

 

[bat21]

I forgot one other thing. My black clown doesn't have any salt-looking ich spots, but he appears, the best way to describe it, dusty. Like if you haven't dusted a piece of black furniture in a while. I'll try to post some pictures if I can clearly capture it. But it is very different than the neon goby, and again, he is still eating and acting completely normally.

 

[madweazl]

To speak on this, and to give an update on my tank, it's been 3 weeks now, and I am still not sure that I am dealing with ich. The symptoms pictured originally in this thread, on my neon goby, change from day to day. Two days ago, the goby looked completely clean and healthy. Then yesterday he looked awful, like in the photos. Now today he looks way better, not quite as good as two days ago, but drastically better than yesterday.

Now, I have also, obviously, been very closely observing every fish for any signs of disease. And on a couple fish, I THOUGHT there was a spot or two, here and there, but it would go away the next day, or it was just nothing, and I'm just looking so closely so often, that I find any little tiny thing and assume it's a symptom. But, what I am sure of is this:

1) The neon goby is the only fish that has looked (symptom-wise) anywhere close to the pictures
2) His appearance (white spots/marks) changes on a daily basis
3) The neon goby, or any fish in the tank, has not once been observed flashing
4) Every fish has continued to eat 100%
5) No fish has changed behavior in any observable way in the 3 weeks since symptoms first appeared

What do you guys think about all that?

This is indicative of the life-cycle for ich. As for the clown, you can investigate brooklynella to see if that matches what you're seeing (let us hope not).

 

[bat21]

Got a good photo of the "dusty" clown:

 

[dweber618]

Agreed - sounds (and looks) textbook for ich on your goby. I had a clown that looked like that, I ran her through TTM, and a couple formalin baths (as that is treatment for brook), and she survived.