sick clown? or not?

[ChrisCancell]

Ok guys don't laugh at me i'm new to saltwater. My tank has been up for 6 months and I made all the newbie mistakes and killed off a lot of fish. Now I'm starting to get an understanding of things anyway...I have 2 sabae clowns in my tank and when I turn on their light in the morning I notice that they have white spots all over them (6am), when I come home from work the spots are gone (4pm)! Is this Ick? or are these just parasites? I have a coral banded shrimp in the tank with them and I thought he would remove the parasite, yesterday at a pet store I found out that cleaner shrimp are the ones that remove parasites so I picked one up to see what he could do. The clowns do not appear sick, they aggressively go after food and have good color to them, there is no heavy or shallow breathing. Any info you guys could provide would be wonderful. They have been in my tank for almost a month and a half now (longest I have kept any saltwater fish alive) and I would really like to have them live.

 

[steve-s]

Welcome to AquariumAdvice.com

How long have you had the clowns? If not properly <<quarantined>> there is a possibility of a parasitic protozoan. It could also be an anomoly in the color from when the lights are off. Many fish will fade in color when the lights go off for the night as a defense mechanism.

Do the spots look like large grains of sugar on the fish or small translucent flat spots? Fins, body or both? Any other odd observations? FWIW, the cleaner shrimp will do little to nothing in terms of curing an infested fish. At best, they might keep the population down some but only marginally.

Cheers
Steve

 

[ChrisCancell]

I have have had the clowns for about a month and a half. They were the first fish in the tank. The white spots look like grains of salt and are on both the fins and the body.

 

[steve-s]

You will need to set up a QT (linked to in my first post) and treat them in that case. Best suggestion is <<hyposalinity>>. The display tank will also need to be left fallow (no fish) for 4-6 weeks.

Cheers
Steve