ICH or Marine Velvet

[DHS]

Well today has been a bad day for us....we had our clown fish die, and when my wife got home we started closer examining our tank. I guess we should give some background....a couple weeks ago we bought a Pseudo and added it to our tank. Last week it died, but we didn't think much about it. We have had Pseudos before and they have always had problems surviving in our tank. However, with the death of our clown fish today we started questioning what the Pseudo may have brought into our tank. Upon looking at our other fish(the tang and damsel mostly), we noticed that there were some very small, white/gold spots on their fins. All our fish are still eating tons, and swimming and seem happy. The tang is scratching a little, and has turned a little more of a white color instead of its normal vibrant yellow.

We have read that Marine Velvet is very similar to ICH, but that the spots are smaller and tend to be more "shimmery" and more gold and white combinations. We aren't sure what is in our tank right now, because it doesn't look like any cases of ICH I have seen before. We were hoping for any responses on what this might be and also what we can do to correct the problem if it is ICH or something else. We have read the other postings and know about the garlic oil and raising the water temp. We are just very concerned about losing our coral and polyps, as well as our fish. We would hate to have to start all over with our tank if this turns out to be a major problem.

Any and all responses would be greatly appreciated as we are desperate to save our tank.

Thanks
DHS

 

[michealprater]

I dont believe corals can get ick. I could be wrong though. But if you have a Q tank, I would quarintine the sick fish and treat it with coppersafe. If you dont have a q tank, you might want to invest in one.

 

[fishfreek]

ICH requires a fish to host. Thus with no fish there is no host for the ICH parasite. If you run your tank for 1 month fishfree it should end the ICH's life cycle.

Garlic treatment will have no effect on your corals. If you rase the temp do it slowly over the period of a few days. Dont raise it above 84F.