A little panicked, please advise...ich?

arking_mark

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1st is this possibly ich? It's not scratching or anything...and no other fish have spots.

20210729_182002-01.jpeg


20210729_182002-01~2.jpeg


I've dealt with ich in the past (gone fallow 2x) and have been very careful with this latest build. I only buy quarantined fish or fish that come from an established tank. I do not QT corals, so there are pathogen vectors that can still hit me.

2nd if this is ich, I'm not setup for treatment. This is a 100gal tank with:

Powder Brown Tang
2x Golden Headed Sleeper Goby
Blue Star Leopard
Candy Basslet
Clown
2x Orange Spotted Filefish
2x Blue Stripe Pipe Fish
Green Banded Goby
Two Spot Goby
Possum Wrassse
Yellow Possum Wrasse
Bicolor Blenny
Goby & Pistol shrimp pair

I'm not sure I can even catch all these fish. As the Wrasses will hide in DSB and I have a ~80lb rock structure that will be very hard to remove.

I don't have a big enough hospital tank and several of these fish won't do well with copper. I usually TTM un-quarentined fish.

I never thought I'd say this, but I may have to go the ich management route...which I don't think really works. :(

Any suggested approaches on how to handle this situation?
 

KrisReef

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Ich management never worked for anyone else so I recommend that you presume that you are dealing with lymphocystis. Treatment for lymphocystis is similar to ich management: just feed the fish a good verity if nutrient rich foods and keep up with water quality doing changes to keep parameters good. If you drink make sure you have a glass of wine each day before you look at the tank and you and your family of fishes will thrive.

You don’t have ich and neither do your fishes. You are okay.
 
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arking_mark

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Ich management never worked for anyone else so I recommend that you presume that you are dealing with lymphocystis. Treatment for lymphocystis is similar to ich management: just feed the fish a good verity if nutrient rich foods and keep up with water quality doing changes to keep parameters good. If you drink make sure you have a glass of wine each day before you look at the tank and you and your family of fishes will thrive.

You don’t have ich and neither do your fishes. You are okay.

Interesting approach...wine and blurry vision. Nothing to see here.

@vetteguy53081 @Jay Hemdal

Any thoughts on this being lymphocystis?
 

Gtinnel

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I'm not necessarily saying that it isn't lympho, but in my experience lympho is usually on the fins of the fish. I see one spot is on a fin but the other is on the body of the fish. Lympho can occur on the body but from what I've seen it's less common.
 

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It’s been a few years, but my 5 year old, 8” Blue Hippo Tang would occasionally (once a year for 2 years) get a white spot or two. No one else! Just Van Gogh. Nothing ever came of it. I can’t imagine all of the needless tank teardowns. Definitely feeling the KrisReef vibe.
 

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I'm not necessarily saying that it isn't lympho, but in my experience lympho is usually on the fins of the fish. I see one spot is on a fin but the other is on the body of the fish. Lympho can occur on the body but from what I've seen it's less common.
One interesting thing about Lymphocystis - it transfers between points on a fish due to physical contact. So - in cases where it is on a pectoral fin, it is very common for a lesion to then develop on the side of the fish at the point where the pectoral fin lesion rubs. That said, I can't say for certain that these two spots line up.

Jay
 

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1st is this possibly ich? It's not scratching or anything...and no other fish have spots.

20210729_182002-01.jpeg


20210729_182002-01~2.jpeg


I've dealt with ich in the past (gone fallow 2x) and have been very careful with this latest build. I only buy quarantined fish or fish that come from an established tank. I do not QT corals, so there are pathogen vectors that can still hit me.

2nd if this is ich, I'm not setup for treatment. This is a 100gal tank with:

Powder Brown Tang
2x Golden Headed Sleeper Goby
Blue Star Leopard
Candy Basslet
Clown
2x Orange Spotted Filefish
2x Blue Stripe Pipe Fish
Green Banded Goby
Two Spot Goby
Possum Wrassse
Yellow Possum Wrasse
Bicolor Blenny
Goby & Pistol shrimp pair

I'm not sure I can even catch all these fish. As the Wrasses will hide in DSB and I have a ~80lb rock structure that will be very hard to remove.

I don't have a big enough hospital tank and several of these fish won't do well with copper. I usually TTM un-quarentined fish.

I never thought I'd say this, but I may have to go the ich management route...which I don't think really works. :(

Any suggested approaches on how to handle this situation?

Tough to say from the pictures - it's like I'm looking through beer goggles (I don't drink wine, grin).

I think the spots are too large to be ich. Could be Lymphocystis - how long have you had this fish? Lymphocystis typically only shows up in newer acquisitions.

Ich management has worked for me only once in 30+ years. In most cases, what happens is the trophont count rises slightly from some often unknown stressor, and then, the higher number of theronts from that create what is called "increased propagule pressure". That in itself is a stressor and then a cascade event occurs and you end up with a full blown infection.


Jay
 

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One interesting thing about Lymphocystis - it transfers between points on a fish due to physical contact. So - in cases where it is on a pectoral fin, it is very common for a lesion to then develop on the side of the fish at the point where the pectoral fin lesion rubs. That said, I can't say for certain that these two spots line up.

Jay
So does that mean that it always starts on the fins and only gets transferred to the body through contact with the fishes own fins, or contact from another fish that has lympho?
 

Jay Hemdal

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So does that mean that it always starts on the fins and only gets transferred to the body through contact with the fishes own fins, or contact from another fish that has lympho?
Either way can transfer it. In some cases, the route of transmission isn't clear.

Jay
 
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Tough to say from the pictures - it's like I'm looking through beer goggles (I don't drink wine, grin).

I think the spots are too large to be ich. Could be Lymphocystis - how long have you had this fish? Lymphocystis typically only shows up in newer acquisitions.

Ich management has worked for me only once in 30+ years. In most cases, what happens is the trophont count rises slightly from some often unknown stressor, and then, the higher number of theronts from that create what is called "increased propagule pressure". That in itself is a stressor and then a cascade event occurs and you end up with a full blown infection.


Jay

I've had this fish for several months.

The spot was there when I came back from a short 4 day trip. So sometime between Sunday and Thursday.

I came back from Florida with fish that were added to the tank...a deffinate stressor. I also used a mirror all day Thursday to keep the powder blue Tang busy with itself.
 

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I wouldn’t panic over one or two spots. The spot looks pretty large to me.

FYI, I would never consider established fish to be disease free. I did ich management for 10 years and my fish rarely showed any issues but I know ich was in the tank. A established fish can certainly have it and bring it into a new tank.
 

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For the record, I do not suggest that anyone should drink to impairment, just a proper sedation to reduce stress especially for cases of uncertainty as this posting provided.

I myself live with chronic pain and a wife so I don’t always practice what I preach. My tank is unquarantined and I have managed to keep most fish long term until stressing out and causing my own problems as a result. For the latter reason I recommend my first course of care in an earlier posting. Having Jay check in and concur (this may not be ich) was comforting to me and hopefully for the op as well.

any update on the current status of the spotty fish, hopefully it is still eating and swimming ok?!
 
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For the record, I do not suggest that anyone should drink to impairment, just a proper sedation to reduce stress especially for cases of uncertainty as this posting provided.

I myself live with chronic pain and a wife so I don’t always practice what I preach. My tank is unquarantined and I have managed to keep most fish long term until stressing out and causing my own problems as a result. For the latter reason I recommend my first course of care in an earlier posting. Having Jay check in and concur (this may not be ich) was comforting to me and hopefully for the op as well.

any update on the current status of the spotty fish, hopefully it is still eating and swimming ok?!

Thanks. Fish is behaving normally. The spot was there this morning and is now gone from its body. The fin may still have a little something, but it's hard to tell.
 
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@Jay Hemdal @KrisReef

So no other fish have had any spots. The Tang is now clean. I'm hoping it was just an irritation or lymphocystis. I know ich incubation is 3 to 72 days, how long would you think I need to wait before we can rule out ich?
 

Jay Hemdal

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@Jay Hemdal @KrisReef

So no other fish have had any spots. The Tang is now clean. I'm hoping it was just an irritation or lymphocystis. I know ich incubation is 3 to 72 days, how long would you think I need to wait before we can rule out ich?
I’d vote for an irritation, lymphocystis takes longer to go away. My general rule is to wait at least 14 days from the last symptom to watch for a relapse. That doesn’t always work for ich, so I always treat for that prophylactally.
Jay
 
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So it looks like fin irritation is maybe back.

20210806_140834~3.jpg


Again. Nothing on any other fish and no scratching behavior for the Tang.

The Tangs body is completely clean at this time.

@Jay Hemdal @KrisReef

I don't think this is ich. Could this just be fine sand or something picked up?
 

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So it looks like fin irritation is maybe back.

20210806_140834~3.jpg


Again. Nothing on any other fish and no scratching behavior for the Tang.

The Tangs body is completely clean at this time.

@Jay Hemdal @KrisReef

I don't think this is ich. Could this just be fine sand or something picked up?
Keep feeding and watching and hopefully very shortly these mysterous skin irritations will be a thing of the past! :) It is good that they are fading in intensity with time. Prognosis is positive, ime.

Thanks for the remind, I need to pick up some live shellfish to treat my fish for health, wellness, and just good food enjoyment for them!

Charlie Brown Snack GIF by Peanuts
 

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I have a 5 year old Foxface that occasionally comes up with spots and I just give it Nori w/garlic drops weekly and it disappears within hours.
 

Jay Hemdal

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So it looks like fin irritation is maybe back.

20210806_140834~3.jpg


Again. Nothing on any other fish and no scratching behavior for the Tang.

The Tangs body is completely clean at this time.

@Jay Hemdal @KrisReef

I don't think this is ich. Could this just be fine sand or something picked up?

The focus of the photo isn't very good - the spots look sort of diffuse. If they look that way in real life, it isn't ich. When it first begins, ich trophonts will look very distinct, with sharp edges, like a grain of salt. In advanced infections, the fish's skin mucus will start to develop, making the spots seem to coalesce and look less distinct.

Jay
 
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