Grain-sized white dots

[Guest]

My porcupine puffer and longhorn cow fish suddenly have these sand grain-looking dots on them. Very tiny but it's all over the place: fins, body, a couple on the eyes. They still act fine. They swin, they eat, they look happy.

So I guess that's ick? I guess it came from those two leather-made green plant ornament thingies.

But everyone else is happy. My humu-humu trigger looks happy. My white spotted puffer looks happy. Both have no dots.

My brother (also in the hobby) told me to gradually increase my temp from my 82-degrees to around 87-degrees. What are the odds that I won't have boiled fish when I come home today?

Has raising the temp worked for anyone? Lowering salinity helped with the humu-humu trigger's fin rot in the past. Should I lower salinity for ick too?

 

[steve-s]

So I guess that's ick? I guess it came from those two leather-made green plant ornament thingies.

Where did the "ornaments" come from?
What was the last fish added and how long ago? I'm assuming you do not use a QT for new fish?

My brother (also in the hobby) told me to gradually increase my temp from my 82-degrees to around 87-degrees. What are the odds that I won't have boiled fish when I come home today?

It would actually be more likely that the infestation will be much worse than before. Raising the temp in regards to marine parasites is generally poor advice and highly unrecommended. The optimum breeding temp for Cryptocaryon irritans is 86°. The other downside is it affects the pH of the fish's blood which adversely affects it's immune response allowing other maladies to take hold as well.

Should I lower salinity for ick too?

If this is an FO system, hyposalinity would work quite well. No inverts or the "bugs" in any LR will survive however and must be removed.

I would also suggest you rethink your stocking load unless you intend on upgrading the tank size soon. The fish types/quantities you have should really be in a larger system. More favorabley 150+ gal.

Cheers
Steve

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your useful advice.

The ornaments came from Congressional Aquarium in Rockville, MD (an LFS). It was brand new. I just had a hunch about it since that was the last thing I did before I saw these dots.

I have a FO tank and I have 4 mexican turbo snails and a medium-sized hermit crab. I've done hyposalinity before on the humu-humu's fin rot (you probably gave me that advice too) and it worked pretty well. After two weeks the fins were clean.

Unfortunately like some of us here, I do not have a QT. In the future I am hoping to get a 150G tank. If money doesn't prevail, I will locally sell them when they get too big.

I will do the hyposalinity method for the ick. Thanks

 

[quarryshark]

I will do the hyposalinity method for the ick.

Thats good, but remove the inverts first. Hypo would most certainly kill them.

 

[Guest]

The puffer seems ok. He swims around, he eats. But I do notice that the spots are increasing. Does that mean the protozoa are nearing their "drop off" stage?

My salinity right now is at 1.021 and I cranked up my protein skimmer a little bit. I kept my temp at 82 degrees F.

I do notice that although the puffer seems to eat and move around, he tends to breathe fast. I don't know how the normal breathing is for porcupine puffers. But this guy has its mouth open and like this "inner lip" is just opening and closing fast.

Do porcupine puffers usually breathe at a fast rate? He's not inflating or anything, just breathing fast.

BTW, I came home with a dead blenny. Its tummy's bin bloated eversince I had him 4 months back. I don't know what killed it. That sucks.......the coinky dinky in this whole thing was I just bought a Red Tail Filefish without knowing yet that the blenny's dead.

So it was this weird instant replacement event.

Weird

 

[steve-s]

The puffer seems ok. He swims around, he eats. But I do notice that the spots are increasing. Does that mean the protozoa are nearing their "drop off" stage?

Yes

My salinity right now is at 1.021 and I cranked up my protein skimmer a little bit. I kept my temp at 82 degrees F.

These steps will have absolutely no affect at all.

I do notice that although the puffer seems to eat and move around, he tends to breathe fast. I don't know how the normal breathing is for porcupine puffers. But this guy has its mouth open and like this "inner lip" is just opening and closing fast.

The main cause of death with C. irritans is suffocation or complications due to secondary infection. The fast gill rate could be a sure sign the infestation is getting quite dense and affecting the puffers ability to gain O2 from the water. You need to begin a treatment ASAP.

BTW, I came home with a dead blenny. Its tummy's bin bloated eversince I had him 4 months back. I don't know what killed it.

Commonly bloating will be from an internal ailment or blockage from an inappropriate diet. Be sure to watch all your animals for any related signs. What do you normally feed the fish?

Cheers
Steve

 

[Guest]

Thanks Steve. Regarding the blenny, there was an abundance of red algae in the tank when the blenny was there. Now it's all fine light green hairs of algae. Anyways, it ate whatever I dropped for the others: Frozen Brime and Frozen Krill. There was a time that I was feeding frozen Marine Forumula.

Regarding the hyposalinity, I did it for two weeks. I went through water as though it was free! I was tossing 5-gallon bucket of water once a day and filling up a new one.

I brought the salinity down to 1.014. The turbo snails died of course. I mean, I had a choice between the 1.99 turbo snails or the 49.99 puffer....and everything else which totalled in the $280. The hermit crab survived. So did the choc star.

Wow, what a success. The puffer started breathing normally now. (meaning, it wasn't as fast as it used to be in the presence of ich). Everyone's clear from dots. It's been the third week now and I didn't see any signs of dots. Hopefully they were eradicated.

I raised the salinity back up to 1.018. I am keeping it there.

Thanks for all your advice!

 

[quarryshark]

I brought the salinity down to 1.014.

Not low enough, need to go down to .009 for a 4 week period to be fully effective. I would watch closely, it may come back.
If you need to do it again, I would remove the inverts. You got lucky once, but there is no way they would survive a proper hypo treatment.

I raised the salinity back up to 1.018

Also, this is too low for the health of your inverts, you really need to have it between 1.023 and 1.025 for them.