fish trouble

I have three fish in the tank and only one looks like he has sand stuck to him. not acting strange, but the white spots dont wash off when he swims through the current and I have a skunk cleaner in the tank also. any ideas. cant get him out for a dip

 

Sound like your fish might have ick, what type of fish do you have. sometimes the skunk cleaner shrimp will clean the ick off the fish and sometimes not!
If not you will have to Quarantine your fishes in a hospital tank and medicate.
I'm sure the others will chime in also.

 

Yup, sounds like ich to me. There are many ways to go about this. If you have a QT tank, then i would place the fish in there and dose it with a copper based med. If you do not have a QT tank you can either go with a reef-safe med (one i like is STOP ICH, its not actually a med...but it causes the ich to leave the fish and gives them a chance to build up their slime coat.) or you can do a fresh water dip. Has anyone done any kind of med dip?...i never really thought of a copper based med dip...might work

 

I have dipped with Formalin dip. Bruce is right. Get the fish into quarantine. If you need to remove your live-rock then do so. How long has the fish been infected? Banish the finned friend to the hospital tank for 45 days to be safe. In the meantime I would get some vitamins and a good selection of grub for the rest of the fish in your tank. What I have noticed is that stress causes ICK. Working in the tank with your hands too much, like moving around your rocks too much or a power-head that fell into the sand causing a sand storm.Changing your water without matching the temp closely and matching the salinity of the water causes stress. You need to make your fish as healthy as you can. I use Boyd's Vita-chem on their food.
http://www.boydenterprisesonline.com/pages/3/page3.html?refresh=1123599847805

You need to be feeding your fish a varied diet of seafood. Formula1 cubes and mysis. Soak the food in Boyd's for 15 minutes just before you feed them. The next day soak the food in Kents Garlic Extreme before feeding. I use Garlic once a week as a preventative thing and use Boyd's Vita-chem 2 or 3 times a week. This keeps my fish plump and healthy. They are too healthy and have a great immune system built up.

Look here for a great recipe for making your own fish-food from fresh seafood available at your safeway store. This recipe will provide a great variety in their diet.
http://www.melevsreef.com/food.html

Here is also a great page on how to feed your fish.
http://www.melevsreef.com/feedings.html

I know this may not help you with your 1 sick fish right now but keeping your fish as healthy as possible will keep them from getting sick.
Oh Yea!!! always keep your water quality high. Do the water changes religiously and use carbon to help keep the water clean.

Good luck and I hope your fish gets better.

Jay

 

will copper treatmet affect my shooms

 

Most definitely! Even small amount of copper can be toxic to your invertebrates as well as corals. And it is also not recommended to use copper in an aquarium containing live rock. There are some treatments that claim to be "reef safe" but I wouldn't chance it. Perhaps someone else has had experience with such products, but copper that is absorbed into LR can become a problem way down the road, because it is very difficult to insure that all traces are removed, it could even leech out in the future. Might be a hassle, especially if it is only for one fish, but believe me, save yourself the larger problem of creating havoc in your display tank, you always want to err on the side of caution in my opinion! ;D

 

decided to go with kick ick shut off lights and fed with garlic. hopefully have temp under control now

 

Hmm...just wondering, is kick ich advertised as an ich "killer" or ich defence... Some meds, instead of killing the ich, will stop it at the stage that it becomes parasitic on the fish...this is fine...but make sure you get the fish as happy as possible and get their coat back...might be worth buying "Stress Coat"

 

I've battled ich 3 times and tried various remedies. Copper is the only known effective additive to eradicate ich from your tank IMO. Others may help control it but it will alway be in your system. Another way to possibly eradicate it from your tank is let it go fallow without fish for 8-12 weeks. The longer the better. QT and do a fresh water dip on your fish and treat them with copper for 2 weeks. Make sure you have a copper test kit as you dont want to OD. If you let your tank go fallow, slowly raise the temp to 82F and try to leave lights off as long as possible but if you have corals you won't be able to. Your shrimp will be ok as they do not carry ich.
I would check around about using things like Kick Ick, Rid ick, Metronidazole, hyposalinity and other remedies. I've battled ich for over a year and have finally eradicated it after doing extensive research and trial and error with various products that give false claims. This is just my honest opinion. Others may have had better results with other methods. Best of luck.

 

Yah, I haven't found a reef safe cure for iche that works. Copper is what I use in a Q tank, for this purpose. Nothing works like copper.