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Urgent, Sick Fish?

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tmreynolds

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I posted on here that my Coral Beauty has been really shy and not eating since I bought him 1.5 weeks ago. I put it down to new tank shyness.

He looks quite thin today and he has whitespot, not really bad but say 15 spots on his body/fins and one on his eye. He looked fine at the LFS, although admittedly I never asked to see him eat, but he was much fatter.

But...one of my clown fish and the 4 line wrasse have also got a few whitespots on them now. The other fish are all acting normal and eating well apart from the CB.

What should I do?

Remove the Coral beauty or see how he goes?

I don't want to lose any fish if I can help it, but if I have to remove the CB this is better than losing the whole lot. I don't have the facility for a quaranteen tank unfortunately.

URGENT please help.
 
what ever you do don't use copper based meds. you could try turning the heater up to 28-29 deg C, i beleive this shortens the lif cycle of the spores. garlic is said to be a remedy. as a very very last resort, a fresh water dip, the PH and temp must be the same as the tank!

i am not an expert on saltwater whitespot by anymeans, i have never had to deal with it so please look up the stickys or wait for another member to help.
 
here is great article i read from a post a few days ago...long winded but very informative and it offers a few ways to deal with it and a few that are proven effective, but that invovles removal of all fish for a minimun of two weeks. if it was me i work go for 6 weeks in a sterile quarantine...with a freshwater dip before the quarantine, then gradually lower salinity over a few days...then leave salintiy low for two weeks...then begin bring it back up the the main tanks salinity. then finish out the remaining time of the 6 weeks. this should also include heavy water changes throughout. this is an extreme way to deal with the problem but it is the safest most effective way in dealing with the problem. the reason for the long quarantine is because the parasites in the main tank must be erradicated or they will re-surface eventually. with no host for that period of time combined with an aggressive water change schedule, they will perish. there are other options though largely unproven...
[post="http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php"]here[/post]
 
Im pretty sure its not whitespot but the more lethal oodinium. I beleive that whitespot doesnt formon the eyes of fish whereas oodinium will.

Remove the fish, give it a freshwater bath and put in isolation. treat it with copper if needed, raise the temprature on the main tank and run ozone, UV or both. Keep the tank fish free for about 6 weeks and this should stop the problem.

Sorry if this sounds intense but i have had oodinium and its a real aweful disease.
 
Navarre said:
Im pretty sure its not whitespot but the more lethal oodinium. I beleive that whitespot doesnt formon the eyes of fish whereas oodinium will.

Remove the fish, give it a freshwater bath and put in isolation. treat it with copper if needed, raise the temprature on the main tank and run ozone, UV or both. Keep the tank fish free for about 6 weeks and this should stop the problem.

Sorry if this sounds intense but i have had oodinium and its a real aweful disease.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately I have no way of putting in isolation. I only have one tank.
 
Thanks for all your advice guys :good:

Touch wood, things are looking better this morning.

I cannot QT as I don't have the facilities unfortunately. I turned the temp up to 28 degrees C last night and fed the fish again, they ate well 3 times yesterday (except the CB)

The clowns and the wrasse no longer appear to have any whitespot, and they continue to act normally.

The CB is still hiding, so I can't tell his condition.

I will continue to monitor closely, especially the CB.

I guess if I need to, I can re-house the fish at my LFS if I continue to have an outbreak. Maybe I can use a non-copper treatment for whitespot as a precautionary measure (assuming its harmless to the inhabitants)? If so, any recommendations?

I'll let you know how things go.

Love those little guys! :wub:
 
i've used Kick-Ick. I ended up using it twice and the results where just okay. i did feel it helped control the outbreak until i was able to set-up a QT. its a reef-safe treatment...it says it kills the parasite when it is in its free swimming stage. one problem to me seems that when the parasite enters its free-swimming stage it is looking for a host. in our relatively tiny biotopes it shouldn't take long for at least some to find a host before the drugs active ingredient kills it. i have no proof for any of this except after the first cycle of using this stuff was done the white spot re-appeared but it took about 2 weeks. then within a couple more weeks i was back at square one.... ended up QTing all fish etc, etc. costs about 26 dollars.
 
My yellow tang wouldnt eat for about 1 week when i got him! what i did was overfeed the tank.. make sure a lot flows around him and stay away from the tank.. dont spot feed... after about a week of that I was able 2 spot feed my fish again...
Ter
 
if you were really desperat couldnt you put the cb in something like a 10 gallon? i have actualy sene them in asda in the uk. I know the tank is too small but isnt it better for the short period where you can actualy treat them
 
Unfortunately the CB was dead this morning. :-( Poor guy, but I feared the worst the last few days, he wasn't well.

At first I thought he was just very shy, but over the last couple of days he looked quite sick too, and he didn't eat, despite all my best efforts.

All the other fish now appear fine, no whitespot to be seen, all acting normally and eating well.

I've fished out the body, and I'm going to do a 25% water change.

I've also ordered some eSHa Oodinex Marine treatment, which is reef/invert safe. I'm not sure whether I will treat the tank yet. If the other fish continue to show no signs, I won't treat and I'll keep the treatment for if I need it in the future.

Thanks for all the help guys,

RIP little fella :rip:
 
brittlestar said:
Oh I was just about to post and ask about your Coral B, awwwwwwww I'm really sorry :sad: I hope all your other guys will be ok though
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'm sure the others will be fine, they seem perfectly happy and the whitespot they were showing the other day has gone.

The temp is still at 28 degrees C, I will reduce this gradually back down to 26 over the next few days.
 
:rip: I am truly sorry for you

Having the treatment as a standby is a good idea though :good:

Where did you buy it?
 
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