Ick

[BUDgetREEFer]

Hi, I have a weird situation. I noticed my fish had white spots on them and I figured it was ick.

I fed them in the morning and didn't see any white spots until I came home after my shower. I saw the spots and so I added medication for treating ick. The next morning they had no more white spots.

I had ick before on my first freshwater tank and that ick lasted 5 or 6 days with treatment. I never realized ick could go away so fast? Maybe it fell off and is in my sand now? Or did I catch it in time and so it went away faster? The fish had the spots on them for no longer than 5 or 6 hours until i noticed it.

I added another dosage to treat it even though there are no more signs of ick on the fish.

Is this weird or is it normal for ick to go away so fast?

 

[Old Fritz]

Probably not ich. when I first got into the hobby and before i had a qt my fish ended up dying over and over and over with no symptoms I could see except that they would end up gasping and listless. One day by accident I raised my salinity to 1.026 when I was keeping it at 1.020. Suddenly every fish was covered in white spots, I knew it was velvet because of the quantity of spots. I changed my salinity back down and the spots disappeared, treated with copper and the problem was solved. If you could post pictures if you see it again that would be great, but for now I would start treating your fish in qt with copper for 3 weeks as this kills both ich and velvet, and leaving your dt fallow for at least 6 weeks but I do 8-9 to be safe.

 

[BUDgetREEFer]

Probably not ich. when I first got into the hobby and before i had a qt my fish ended up dying over and over and over with no symptoms I could see except that they would end up gasping and listless. One day by accident I raised my salinity to 1.026 when I was keeping it at 1.020. Suddenly every fish was covered in white spots, I knew it was velvet because of the quantity of spots. I changed my salinity back down and the spots disappeared, treated with copper and the problem was solved. If you could post pictures if you see it again that would be great, but for now I would start treating your fish in qt with copper for 3 weeks as this kills both ich and velvet, and leaving your dt fallow for at least 6 weeks but I do 8-9 to be safe.

Unfortunately I dont have pictures when they had velvet or ick. I was running around to find the treatment in my house. I can show you a pic of my mollies that had a few spots on them and are now gone. I would like to think my quick action saved them ^^ in less than 16 hours the ick was gone.

Im 3 months into saltwater. What is velvet? I'm guessing it similar to ick like a parasitic disease? And could you explain how salinity affects it?

I'm uncomfortable using copper on my dt (my only salt tank) bc it has inverts in it. I am interested in setting up a 20 gallon high for a qt but I am low on money atm. (dang you christmas) but I have my future plans for the hobby all on my notebook, which include a custom sump feeding my reef and frag tank, fish only tank w sump and a quarantine station.

 

[Old Fritz]

Velvet is has similiar visable symptoms the white dots being the main thing. The difference being if you can easily count the amount of white spots its probably ich; if its too many to count its probably velvet. Velvet also makes their slime coat look well like velvet. However sometimes you wont even get to see visable symptoms of velvet.

Treating the dt is difficult because you should remove all rocks and substrate (a pain in the you know what). If you have a bucket and an airstone you could keep your inverts in a bucket or tupperware container. while you treat the dt

 

[Old Fritz]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/

Check out this link on velvet

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ich-cryptocaryon-irritans.191226/

And this one for ich

 

[BUDgetREEFer]

Velvet is has similiar visable symptoms the white dots being the main thing. The difference being if you can easily count the amount of white spots its probably ich; if its too many to count its probably velvet. Velvet also makes their slime coat look well like velvet. However sometimes you wont even get to see visable symptoms of velvet.

Treating the dt is difficult because you should remove all rocks and substrate (a pain in the you know what). If you have a bucket and an airstone you could keep your inverts in a bucket or tupperware container. while you treat the dt

Gotcha. Well I think its ick bc there are a few spots on the fish. If I got copper and separated the inverts, and dosed the tank, would I have to clean out the tank bc of any copper residue? How long does the copper have to be in there to properly kill the parasites? And for the ick treatment I had to turn off my skimmer and turn off my filter that has charcoal and chemipure in it? This is my 1st tank and I'm expecting a lot of learning bumps lol.

 

[Old Fritz]

It depends on the type of copper. If you use cupramine you remove it from the tank with carbon. Other types of copper require water changes to get it to zero. Youll want to remove anything porous like liverock and substrate as that will absorb copper making it harder to maintain a theuraputic dosage and once you clean out the water, copper will seep out into the tank. Here's another thread on copper treatment

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/copper-treatment.193343/

 

[BUDgetREEFer]

It depends on the type of copper. If you use cupramine you remove it from the tank with carbon. Other types of copper require water changes to get it to zero. Youll want to remove anything porous like liverock and substrate as that will absorb copper making it harder to maintain a theuraputic dosage and once you clean out the water, copper will seep out into the tank. Here's another thread on copper treatment

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/copper-treatment.193343/

Thanks a lot for all your help. I will have to research it tomorrow morning. Maybe I should set up a 10 gallon qt tomorrow. The faster I can get this done the less stress on the fish. Luckily my fish are pigs with the mysis shrimp even when they have the ick.

 

[Old Fritz]

Youre welcome. If you have anymore questions feel free to ask here or you can pm me