Sick Clownfish?

[bstaton]

I’ve had this clownfish for about a month now, he had these very small white dots along his back, face, and fins. Is this normal??

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

This is marine ich, and unfortunately is nearly impossible to treat in your main display.

You will need to set up a separate quarantine tank with Copper (I like Coppersafe), and bring it to a therapeutic level (between 1.5-2.5 depending on brand of copper used). I would recommend a digital copper test as well, to make sure you’re maintaining proper therapeutic levels.

Do not add copper to your main display, it kills invertebrates such as crabs and corals. There are tons of other threads on how to do a copper treatment.

Move all fish into hospital tank for at least 30-45 days, but 60 days can be best to ensure the full life cycle of the parasite is over and has been eradicated.

Don’t be fooled by the spots suddenly disappearing off the fish, this does not mean they are cured, but is just part of the life cycle.

 

[bstaton]

This is marine ich, and unfortunately is nearly impossible to treat in your main display.

You will need to set up a separate quarantine tank with Copper (I like Coppersafe), and bring it to a therapeutic level (between 1.5-2.5 depending on brand of copper used). I would recommend a digital copper test as well, to make sure you’re maintaining proper therapeutic levels.

Do not add copper to your main display, it kills invertebrates such as crabs and corals. There are tons of other threads on how to do a copper treatment.

Move all fish into hospital tank for at least 30-45 days, but 60 days can be best to ensure the full life cycle of the parasite is over and has been eradicated.

Don’t be fooled by the spots suddenly disappearing off the fish, this does not mean they are cured, but is just part of the life cycle.

I watched the BRS QT guide and I think I’m going to go with that, but their QT only takes 15 days to rid the fish of ich and any other diseases, what do I do with my QT after the fish are treated? Just treat the QT as a regular tank until the 60 day period is over?

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

I watched the BRS QT guide and I think I’m going to go with that, but their QT only takes 15 days to rid the fish of ich and any other diseases, what do I do with my QT after the fish are treated? Just treat the QT as a regular tank until the 60 day period is over?

You may be able to get the fish healthy faster, however you’ll want to leave your display tank empty for at least the full 45-60 days to let the ich die off in the tank, otherwise the fish may be reinfected and this process restarts.
But after the fish are out of QT, yes I just treat mine like a regular tank, dose ammonia or feed it fish food to keep the cycle healthy and going when it has no fish.
Dosing fish food, instead of bottled ammonia, may lead to phosphate and nitrate spikes and thus algae, but if you keep the light off completely it shouldn’t grow too much if the levels spike.

 

[Idech]

If it just started you can try Polyp Lab reef medic. It sometimes works when there a just a few ich spots on the fish.

 

[JanetB]

My clown fish also have tiny white dots on his top part and I don’t have a QT and my display tank has corals and invertebrates. What other treatment can I use other than copper ?