My fish have bubbles on them! HELP ASAP

[kac101]

30 Gal saltwater tank. We have one small frag of corals, several inverts, 2 clowns, 1 coral beauty angel, 1 fang Blenny, and 2 small chromis.
Our tank is 2.5 months old and has been through its full cycle. Ammonia, Nirtite, and Nitrates all zero, PH 8.4, and temp is 77 deg.
Earlier this week we had a firefish die randomly. There was nothing visibly wrong with the fish and he seemed to die unexpectedly. The same day, I noticed our larger clown had what looked like air bubbles on it. They aren’t large and they are clear. I took the photo to our fish store(we happen to live next to the worlds #1 clownfish breeder), and she did not think the fish had ich and she didn’t think it looked much like any disease. She said the clown could be stressed and that causes them to produce a slime coat which could cause bubbles to stick. She recommended we feed them a little more to help them out and to turn our lights down for most of the day to de-stress the fish. We added in some melafix just Incase there was some bacteria lingering around. All of our fish have been acting normal and eating very well 2 times a day (brine shrimp). They all go about their normal business, swim normally, and they are not lethargic.
fast forward 4 days to today and my angel seems to have the same bubbles with our small clown having a few of them as well.
I have attached pictures of the clown from Monday and the angel from today. Please can someone ease my mind?
some forums make it seem like velvet because they definitely don’t look like Ich spots, but it is not near as severe as the photos of velvet that I see. We do have a lot of air bubbles in our tank right now and I’m not sure why. I know melafix causes soapy bubbles, but these are air bubbles.

 

[Colin_T]

Don't use Melafix in marine tanks. It's not good for inverts.

Do you feed the fish anything besides brineshrimp?
Marine fish need more than brineshrimp. You can offer them raw or cooked prawn, fish, squid/ octopus, mysis shrimp to them. If you have live shrimp in the tank, use cooked prawn and not raw prawn. Raw prawn can transfer some diseases to live shrimp.

Do you have a protein skimmer on the tank?
These can release tiny bubbles into the water that can stick to the fish if they are stressed. Having said that, the fish in the pictures don't appear to have air bubbles on them.

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Do a 90% water change and gravel clean the substrate. Give the fish 24 hours and then see if they still have the spots on them. Post new pictures in 24 hours.

If you are using artificial marine salts, make the saltwater up 24 hours before using it.

The spots start at the mouth and work up over the head and back but do not appear to be on the lower half or rear half of the fish. This could be either excess mucous or head and lateral line disease. A huge water change should remove anything in the water that is stressing the fish and might fix the problem.

 

[kac101]

The bottle says it is safe for all reef tanks and inverts. I did a water change but I did not see much change in them overall. The clown still has the spots, maybe not as severe as before. The angel however, is not doing well. Today she has been hiding in her cave all day. She ate well this morning after some coaxing but wasn’t very active.
this morning our smallest chromis died, which I felt coming. Since the other chromis died, the larger one was picking at it a lot. I noticed the whole end of his tail had turned white (not the fin). I found him this morning half eaten.
My biggest current problem is my peppermint shrimp. We noticed the other day that he literally was sitting on our angel as she was swimming. We kinda shrugged it off. She didn’t seem to mind. Well today we noticed her side had a large white spot on it. Later tonight, we saw the shrimp literally digging at that spot and now it has become a hole. I fear she is not going to make it because of this now.
I just need to know what’s going on with my tank. I am running low on fish and at this point they all could die before we know what’s happening.
Attached updated photos. Also a photo of the spot that’s being caused by the shrimp.

 

[Colin_T]

In the latest pictures it looks like whitespot.

I would do another big water change and increase the water temperature to 30C. Keep it at 30C for 2 weeks and see if it helps.

Whitespot and velvet die at 29C and after 3 or 4 days at 30C they should be clear. However, it's a good idea to keep the water at 30C for 2 weeks just to be sure.

If there's no improvement after 3 days at 30C post more pics.

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Peppermint shrimp will pick at sores on fish so you need to separate them until it has healed. You can put the shrimp in a breeding net or move it into another container with some rock and sand. Whitespot doesn't affect shrimp because it can't get through their shell so if the shrimp is kept away from fish for 2 weeks it should be free of any whitespot (assuming it is whitespot).

 

[kac101]

Our heater never makes the temp above 78 Fahrenheit. I don’t know how to get the water to that temp quickly.

 

[kac101]

What is a good thing to put the shrimp in? I don’t have a secondary tank to put him in.

 

[Colin_T]

Plastic storage containers are fine for shrimp. Put a thin layer of sand on the bottom, add a couple of rocks and maybe plastic plants. Have an airstone bubbling away and only feed it once a week.
Monitor the ammonia levels and change the water if there is any ammonia.

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Most heaters have a dial on the top and you turn that to raise or lower the temperature. If it doesn't have that, either buy a new heater that is adjustable, or remove all the invertebrates from the tank, and you can use copper or malachite green to kill whitespot. But you will need to do a complete water change before putting the inverts back in the tank if you use chemicals.

The other option is to remove the fish and put them in a clean container of seawater. Leave them there for 24 hour and move them into a new container of clean seawater. Wait 24 hours and move into another container of seawater. Continue doing this for a week and then the fish should be free of parasites. But you will need a couple of containers and a lot of seawater. You also need to disinfect, nets, airlines, heaters, etc, and the container before re-using it.

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If you have live corals in the tank, they might bleach if the water hits 30C. In which case, move the corals into a spare container until after the heat treatment has finished and the tank is cooler.

This is more of an issue for hard corals but some soft corals will also bleach.​