Ich? or someting else...

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MikeyG33

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
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Oct 14, 2013
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29 Gallon salt tank with water parameters within normal ranges across the board. 2 small ocelaris clowns and one fire fish. live rock, but no filter. introduced some snails and hermit crabs to clean algae and within a few days the clowns were getting white spots along the bod and fins. Today one of the clowns died, but the fire fish has had no signs of white sports at all, no where. have checked it several times daily and checked water parameters daily.. fire fish has no signs at all of any spots, not on fins or anything. it is moving and eating and acting normally. the other clown still has white spots on body and fins. several ove the snails and crabs have also died, but did not display any signs of being sick, no spots, no noticable actions that made me think they are unhealthy or acting weird. Snails/crabs died about a week after i got them and 3 days before the clown. I asked an employee at my local fish store for advice, they sold me a bottle of something called Ich attack.. it does not have copper and is save for inverts and corals.. dont have corals yet. also they said to turn up the temp to 84 F. So I dont understand.. why would the fire fish not appear to be sick? would there be any reason the clowns are stressed and got sick but not the fire fish? could the snails/crabs have introduced something that only affected the clowns? I am very confused, it doesnt make sense to me that some fish get sick and others dont.
 
Hi, I can't help much, but some fish are more susceptible and some fish have better immune systems, your fire fish could still get it.

Hopefully someone else will be along soon who can help you more, hope you get it sorted soon
 
Sorry in advance for confusion, the OP is my boyfriend...

So now the other clown has died. :(

My parameters are great... PH 8.2, Ammonia 0, Trites 0, Trates 10. Spec. gravity 1.024. No clue what could have stressed the clowns to the point of death by ich. I had them for about 5 or 6 weeks. The tank had been running fully cycled with the LR for about 4 months before i put any fish in. I have been feeding New Life Spectrum Marine Life formula pellets and frozen mysis.

The firefish continues to look and act well. While some of the snails and hermits we got did die, there are a fair few still crawling around and doing their thing.
I'm still treating twice daily with the Ich Attack stuff we bought, though everything I read says it doesn't work. At least it's copper free and won't ruin possible future plans to add corals. I also am adding some vitamins to the water as suggested by the LFS and I bought some garlic supplement to soak the food in.
If my firefish remains 100% ok for 2-3 months, I'm going to hope all is okay and try (gradually) introducing more fish. If the firefish becomes ill and dies...I will leave the tank fishless for 2-3 months.
If I have to do this, will it matter that there are inverts and LR in the tank? Could they harbor the ich? Or would it still count as having the tank "fallow"?

I plan to add an aquaclear running a sponge and purigen in the very near future... I'm also going to transition gradually to RO: DI water as I do water changes.
 
OK, that is helpful. Thank you!

I still am curious what could have made the clowns more susceptible. Anyone have any thoughts on this so I can correct any possible stressors? I don't want to cure the ich, but still have unhappy stressed out fishies.
 
Catching ich doesn't necessarily mean a fish is stressed out. The firefish's immune system just identified the ich as a problem and dealt with it while the clowns didn't. It's the same logic behind two people standing next to a sick person and only one of them catching it. It's true that stress can make something more susceptible to ich; it's not the only factor.

I would also like to add that the firefish could potentially still have ich, since it usually attacks the gills before anything else.


The inverts dying could be due to the salinity change from acclimation. How did you acclimate them before adding them to your tank?
 
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