Dear God I Hope It's Not Ich!

I have an orchid dottyback and I just noticed that there are two white spots on his right side.

I am having a hard time getting a picture with the camera on my phone because he is too quick. Is there anything else that manifests itself as white dots other than ich?

I've never seen the beginning of an ich outbreak, but it doesn't look like the standard "powdery" white spots that comes with ich. The spots seem larger and as I mentioned, there are two of them that are about 3/4 of a cm away from each other.

 

If it is it's not the end of the world.

There are two common sides to MI treatment, as I'm sure you are aware.

Side 1 qt's and treats all fish leaving the DT fallow for 8-11 weeks.

Side 2 will increase the infected fishes diet with foods high in HUFA's and decrease stressers in the tank.

I used to be on side one. But if you've ever tried to get fish out of a fully stocked and scaped tank you'll know why I know believe the side 2 method is just as effective.

The fish remains in a familiar environment and it's much easier to get them to eat. Plus all the other fish get loaded up food as well.

I also like the addition of cleaner shrimp as a preventative. People say that it's 50/50 the shrimp will do what it does in nature. If that's a fact I must be the luckiest sum***** on the planet because both of the shrimp I have took to it natrually and set up cleaning stations in each tank within 24 hours.

I'm sure someone with a far broader knowledge of this situation will chime in. But in the mean time don't stress to much. Your fishy will be fine.

 

I have a skunk cleaner shrimp and a fire shrimp. All they seem to do is eat the mysis that I target feed to my corals

As for the HUFA foods, what do you recommend? I'm really not trying to tear down my entire tank unless things get desperate.

 

With 2 specs like you said, I would really just take a step back and calm down. Haha. I know ich sounds scary, but if the fish is eating well you should be okay IME. Make sure that it is healthy and if you can nutrient soak the food you feed your fish for a while. Maybe feed a bit more as well. All tanks have ich, if the fish get stressed it can pop up from time to time, but Im sure your system will be just fine.

 

I'm freakin out man!

Yea, In all honesty, I'm not all that worried about it, I just want to make sure that I address it before it becomes a major problem.

Right now, I am feeding instant ocean chips and mysis occasionally. The rest of my fish eat omega one w/ garlic, but the dottyback won't touch it. Should I up my amount of mysis?

 

Ahahahaha. That smiley face really just made me laugh. I would increase your mysis for a bit. Then you should be good to go.

 

Well, it looks like my fish will be eating like kings for a while.

 

Anyone else have any advice?

 

I like to feed foods soaked in Super Selcon. There's some other additives but I can't remember what they are at the moment.

If I remember correctly Kent Zoe is high in HUFA and most chain LFS carry a good selection of Kent stuff.

If the fish stops eating add a little extract of garlic or fresh pressed garlic juice.

 

Yea, I was reading up on selcon and I think I might need to try to find some. Sounds pretty great for adding HUFA.