white spot on damsel

[irene]

I have two out of 6 yellow tailed damsels in 90 gal tank that
have white spot. They have 40 lbs of live rock to hide in and
so I can't catch them to treat with copper in sink tank. Help??

 

[WaterKeeper]

Hi Irene,

That is a dilemma and, alas, I'm afraid you may need to remove the rockwork to save the fish. You don't want to treat the main tank with medication and using hypo would kill off inverts and beneficial organisms on the rock and sand. For full details see Ich Part I and Ich Part II. I'd also pay heed to An Once of Prevention to avoid future troubles of this sort.

 

[Dubbin1]

Well you can take the rock out to catch and treat them or leave them in the tank and risk killing the other fish.

 

[WaterKeeper]

Oh, by all means remove all the fish for treatment. Not just the two with symptoms.

 

[ACBlinky]

You could try draining most of the water out of the tank rather than moving the rocks. Create a depression in the sand; the fish will end up collecting in the low area and you should be able to just pull them out. When you're done, you can pump the water back into the tank, having disturbed nothing. A short time out of water won't hurt the rock or corals. I learned this method here and used it on my 30g. I found that it was quick and easy, but would be more difficult with a 90g. If you have a few big containers and a strong pump it should be feasable.

 

[Andrew]

I got my devil damsel from my 75 by putting a critter cage with the pull up lids and put food in it every for for about a week and then one day I put the food in and he went in and I just shut the lid and pulled on it on. That works ( well atleast it worked for me, and I had tons of rock in the tank )