White Spot On A Clown Fish

[rob_cool1]

Im not sure if you can get it with marines but i think one of my clowns has white spot (from experience with tropicals) 
He only has 4-5 spots on him at the minute and none of the others has been affected yet. I have interpet anti white spot but i think thats for tropicals only, is there anything treatment i can use?
 
I would add a pic but he keeps moving too god dam quick so its just a blur lol. theres 2 on his body and 2 on his fins. It doesnt seem to bother him, hes acting like he normally does
 
Cheers
Rob

 

[Donya]

Marine ich is Cryptocaryon irritans and looks very similar to freshwater ich. 
 
What kind of tank is this? Reef? Fish-only? Do you have a hospital tank or are you able to set up a makeshift container for one? Unfortunately, medications that actually work to kill ich are likely to kill invertebrates and can also clobber live rock - so they are really only suitable for hospital tanks and/or bare bones fish-only tanks that will never have inverts. Hyposalinity treatments also risk killing live rock and will kill other inverts unless it's a very weak hyposalinity (in which case it's not certain that it will knock out the ich; it would rely more on the fish fighting it off on its own). 

 

[rob_cool1]

Yeah it's a reef tank with inverts, live rock and coral so il probs just leave him to fight it itself. I don't have a hospital tank either as I don't have the space or resources hopefully he should do fine. I left my tropicals to fight it off themselves the second time my tank got it.

Hrs eating fine too so that's a good sign, il update if things get any worse.

Cheers for the reply!
Rob

 

[Sebul]

I was thinking ich too, which can't be good and can spread to your other fish. Has the situation changed at all? I would put some anti-ich into the tank just to be safe. That way you won't have to worry about it spreading or have to deal with it harming your fish.

 

[Donya]

 I would put some anti-ich into the tank just to be safe. That way you won't have to worry about it spreading or have to deal with it harming your fish.

 
The tank in question in this thread is a reef tank, so this should absolutely not be done. Ich treatments that are effective against the parasite (copper, formalin, hyposalinity) will also kill many invertebrates and can harm live rock as well. The only time it is totally safe to add anti-ich meds to a marine tank is when it's a fish-only tank with no live rock.

 

[rob_cool1]

It hasn't spread to any of the other fish and it hasn't got worse on the clown (still has only 4 spots) he's been acting fine and eating as normal so i assume he's fighting it off ok. they've both gone to there night time hiding place for the night now lol. Going to do another water change tomoz and get it tested so i know thats all fine i might invest in a small hospital tank and just run a small internal filter and fill it up when i need it to treat the fish. Can i do that or does it need to be constantly running?
 
Cheers

 

[Donya]

In general I would say a hospital tank doesn't need to be running 24/7 when the plan is to use it for meds (vs. a med-less quarantine, which sometimes have LR), since such a tank is meant to get nuked with stuff that would risk killing off an established biological filtration system anyway. WCs are the main method of waste control in those cases.