My butterfly fish please help

[Lovesfish]

It looks like my butterfly fish has white spots on him do I need to treat him for Ick? I can't put him by himself in his own tank so would I just treat the whole tank if that is what it is? thanks

 

[Lovesfish]

can I get a hang on the tank contair to treat them then just let them back in the tank or what?

 

[superman]

There is a reason why the butterfly has come down with ich, some other inhabitant, or something in the tank is stressing the fish out. I assume you have a quarantine tank right? If not, shame on you, get another tank up and running ( a twenty gallon would be ok) move the butterfly to that and go from there. If you don't have the option of a quarantine tank, well then you can try and medicate the butterfly in the tank that it is in, but something in the tank is stressing it out, you can start to see the problem that the absence of a qaurantine tank creates. If no one in the tank is picking on it, and EVERYTHING is as it should be (no temp fluctuations over 2 degrees, no ph fluctuations of more than 1... etc.) then there is an outside possibility that the butterfly will benefit form medicating even within the show tank with the other fish. Is the butterfly a new arrival?

 

[Lovesfish]

well I had added some salted water today to help raise my salinity and come back later and my butterfly fish and yellow tang have ich so I'm wondering if that might have caused them get get it. or was it from a clownfish I had that has since died it looked like he had a lump of white bumps on a part of white by his gills. thanks for the info.

 

[Lovesfish]

It appears all the spots are gone that I can see except on his tail. I'm thinking that maybe my cleaner shrimp cleaned him in the night but idk. I have heard cleaner shrimp clean your fish for you.

 

[blout]

yeah they do it all the time in my tank, that is untill yesterday when i found it dead poor little bugger i think the heat got to him but will deff get another

 

[superman]

Be vigilant, ich has a life cycle, there is a part of the life cycle that they will release off of the fish and drop onto the substrate. SO you may not be in the clear quite yet. In the mean time you may want to pick up a cleaner goby, alon with the cleaner shrimp you may be able to fend off the ich without taking drastic action.

 

[Lovesfish]

I got somestuff that will kill the free swimming ich over 14 days. raised the tank temp alittle to cause the ich to fall off cause the guy at the store said that raising the tank temp would cause the ich on the fish to fall off and then the stuff would kill it. got the cleaner shrimp already just not a goby. I want to see this ick pass over before adding any new additions to the tank and I have to save money anyway. thanks for the advice superman. I found stuff that won't kill my inverts either.

 

[fraservet]

stuff that doesn't kill inverts is generally not strong enough to kill the parasites.
make sure you have a good skimmer running, I had a tank wipeout after treating for ich.

you will never get rid of the parasite completely, just reduce it to levels that the fish can fight off.
make sure there is no cause of stress in the tank - e.g. water parameters, aggression etc.

 

[Lovesfish]

it says it works so I guess I will see. the guy said he used it at the store and it works just isn't as strong as the ones with copper