Bellus angel covered in spots - ich? Velvet?

[Aparker2005]

Hey everyone. Our female bellus has suddenly out of nowhere become covered in what looks to me, like ich.

Had her since early October, no issues. Eats like a pig, swims normally, not bullied.

Tank parameters are all good. No other fish have issues. I didn't qt the fish. (I know, I know).

We have a qt tank I can put her in, but it also currently houses our daughter's pair of clowns. I can't put those clowns in our 125 as they'll fight with our other pair, so I'm kinda in a pickle.

Only meds we have currently are a small amount of prazi pro. Small town with no legit fish stores within an hour or more around. Will have to order anything. We do have some garlic guard I occasionally put with their foods.

Very weird, and she's eating like a pig still. Any ideas on what I should do?

Fin spots don't look raised, but the ones on her body are like very small specks. I thought it was sand at first, but my wife called me down and I realized it definitely wasn't sand.

Thanks!

 

[KrisReef]

Looks like Ich. I would get a UV sterilizer running on the tank ASAP.

 

[Aparker2005]

Looks like Ich. I would get a UV sterilizer running on the tank ASAP.

We've got one running. Hopefully it'll pass soon with her continuing to eat so well. I guess I didn't even notice until today just tossing food in. Looking back, she's eating like crazy so I didn't do a super close inspection.

Any fish I've had from my freshwater days with ich, they wouldn't even eat and be super lethargic. She's quite the opposite

 

[LAReefer4Life]

We've got one running. Hopefully it'll pass soon with her continuing to eat so well. I guess I didn't even notice until today just tossing food in. Looking back, she's eating like crazy so I didn't do a super close inspection.

Any fish I've had from my freshwater days with ich, they wouldn't even eat and be super lethargic. She's quite the opposite

This looks like late stages of ich but usually at this point they tend to lose appetite, so that's a good sign it's still eating.

UV's are great to help reduce the number of parasites but is only effective if it comes in contact with the bulb. Also proper 3x + sizing, flow rate, and contact time play a major role.

Is the angel the only fish showing visible signs on the body?

Did you add anything to the tank recently?

Any other strange behavior, flashing, rapid breathing, scratching, etc?

Prazi won't do anything for ich. If you don't have access to meds you can run hypo-salinity but you'll need to remove any corals or inverts in the tank, it will kill them. I don't suggest pulling the fish into QT and then putting it back in the same aquarium to be reinfected.

If you can find access to Copper, this is your medicated option which has to be administered in separate QT but again you need to treat all fish and run your display tank fish-less for minimum of 6 weeks.

 

[Viking_Reefing]

We've got one running. Hopefully it'll pass soon with her continuing to eat so well. I guess I didn't even notice until today just tossing food in. Looking back, she's eating like crazy so I didn't do a super close inspection.

Any fish I've had from my freshwater days with ich, they wouldn't even eat and be super lethargic. She's quite the opposite

How big is the tank and what wattage/tank turnover?
You will need around 100.000 uws/cm2 for proper parasite control (some studies sides 150k and above).

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hey everyone. Our female bellus has suddenly out of nowhere become covered in what looks to me, like ich.

Had her since early October, no issues. Eats like a pig, swims normally, not bullied.

Tank parameters are all good. No other fish have issues. I didn't qt the fish. (I know, I know).

We have a qt tank I can put her in, but it also currently houses our daughter's pair of clowns. I can't put those clowns in our 125 as they'll fight with our other pair, so I'm kinda in a pickle.

Only meds we have currently are a small amount of prazi pro. Small town with no legit fish stores within an hour or more around. Will have to order anything. We do have some garlic guard I occasionally put with their foods.

Very weird, and she's eating like a pig still. Any ideas on what I should do?

Fin spots don't look raised, but the ones on her body are like very small specks. I thought it was sand at first, but my wife called me down and I realized it definitely wasn't sand.

Thanks!

That's a moderately severe case of ich - the only other thing it could be are "mucus plugs", but those don't create spots on clear fins like that, so I'd say it is ich.

Do ANY other fish show spots yet?

IMO, this is beyond the point where ich management techniques are likely to work - what happens is that overnight, new theronts are released from tomonts in the substrate and can overwhelm the fish.

The best treatment would be to move all of the fish into a treatment tank and medicate with either hyposalinity or coppersafe. I understand that would be difficult. You can try ich management, but you'll need to be very aggressive and use all methods, and it will be a lot of work:

"Ich Management"

Because this topic continues to come up, I wanted to create a sticky thread so that it is more easily referenced. Please understand that I am NOT presenting this as an optimum method for controlling marine ich, just putting it out there for people who want to try it. Also, do not pick and...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Aparker2005]

That's a moderately severe case of ich - the only other thing it could be are "mucus plugs", but those don't create spots on clear fins like that, so I'd say it is ich.

Do ANY other fish show spots yet?

IMO, this is beyond the point where ich management techniques are likely to work - what happens is that overnight, new theronts are released from tomonts in the substrate and can overwhelm the fish.

The best treatment would be to move all of the fish into a treatment tank and medicate with either hyposalinity or coppersafe. I understand that would be difficult. You can try ich management, but you'll need to be very aggressive and use all methods, and it will be a lot of work:

"Ich Management"

Because this topic continues to come up, I wanted to create a sticky thread so that it is more easily referenced. Please understand that I am NOT presenting this as an optimum method for controlling marine ich, just putting it out there for people who want to try it. Also, do not pick and...

www.reef2reef.com

No other fish are showing any signs of spots or sickness. The bellus isn't acting remotely sick either, very different from any other fish I've ever had that had ich. I'm feeding well and keeping up with water changes and hoping for the best.

 

[Aparker2005]

Just to update, the bellus still looks like this. It has maintained itself as the most aggressive eater, no signs of being sick, and no other fish have any spots or been sick/died.

No clue what this is. Wouldn't ich or velvet have already killed this fish? No clue what it is, but it's growing, healthy, and a voracious eater!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Just to update, the bellus still looks like this. It has maintained itself as the most aggressive eater, no signs of being sick, and no other fish have any spots or been sick/died.

No clue what this is. Wouldn't ich or velvet have already killed this fish? No clue what it is, but it's growing, healthy, and a voracious eater!

Velvet would have killed the fish by now, and that doesn't create spots like that. Ich can take days/weeks to kill, but the spots would come and go on the angel AND you would start to see spots on the other fish. The next diagnosis is the mucus cones/plugs that I mentioned.

Can you post a clearer picture and/or video?

Here is a write-up I did on the mucus plugs:

Idiopathic mucus plugs/cones: Fish sometimes develop excess mucus that excretes from the producing skin cells and rather than spreading out along the body, rises up as a cone or a plug. These presumable develop from some sort of skin irritation. If you do a skin scrape on them, all you see is mucus. They do show up on dark colored fish more often, probably because the contrast makes them easier to see. The cause(s) for this is unknown. In some cases, they just go away, in other cases, the fish dies - but in those cases, it is probable that there was a secondary issue. There may be some correlation between copper sulfate use, or a reaction to a previous skin infection. There is also some strong correlation between this issue and the species of fish; surgeonfish, tetras and Anabantids are all known to develop this. Many people misdiagnose these mucus plugs as Cryptocaryon or Lymphocystis, but the plug or cone shape to the mucus is diagnostic to some degree.