Resolved ICH, or stress?

Yesterday, I bought a clown fairy wrasse... I love him, he looks fantastic. When I put him in my tank, he looked "normal" (colors a little pale from transportation stress, otherwise good). This morning, he ate the brine I put in there just fine, and his colors were more full.

This afternoon (now), he has white spots all over him... on his fins, his tail fin, his body, etc. I can't really get a solid picture of it but if I can I'll post it here.

Is this definitively ich? Or, are white spots possibly a sign of stress? I also introduced two corals and another fish (zoa, green clove polyp, red firefish) at the same time I introduced him. Today, I introduced a torch coral around noon.

Also, if it *is* ich, what do I do? The LFS is unfortunately closed tomorrow and the rest of today. I don't want to lose my fish... how long does it take ich to kill?


Thanks for the advice, everybody.

 

It's probably ich and it's probably triggered due to stress. You likely have ich in your system and your other fish are healthy enough and not stressed so they repeatedly fight off the parasite. However, the new guy is stressed so it can't fight it off as well.

Make sure you are feeding that fish well. Add HUFA's and Vitamin C to the food (if that's not something you normally do for all your fish). Your fish are not going to die overnight from ich. (now if the spots all over the fish are marine velvet, then that can happen). Since you can't get a picture, does it look like these? marine velvet - Google Images

 

Ok I've got some good pictures of the possible ich with my macro lens on my DSLR. Please tell me what I should do!

 

Yeah, that's ich instead of velvet.

If your water parameters are good and you feed him a healthy diet, he should start immediately fighting this off.

 

I feed them "ocean nutrition Formula ONE Marine Pellet" small pellets, and also i just bought some brine shrimp because I hear the fairy wrasse doesn't like the pellets as much... either way, the fairy is feeding like crazy when i put the brine in, then i feed the others a few pellets on top. The webpage on the food says it includes HUFAs. How do i add vitamin C? What else should I add?

I don't need to medicate or anything? How do I tell if the ich isn't being fully fought off... the fish will show obvious signs of poor health?

 

It appears to be ich to me. You can Add HUFA's and Vitamin C to the food like inwall suggested. when I have had a problem I mix garlic guard with the food and also turn out the lights to help reduce stress. This has worked for me.

 

That is a very good food. I'm going to tell you something that isn't on the bottle of your food.....once it's opened, store it in the fridge. It helps keep the vitamins and other nutrition longer. That's also why, even though it's cheaper to buy the larger bottles, you're better off buying the smaller bottles.

You can soak your food in Welcome to American Marine Inc. or GVH SERIES - GARLIC, VITAMINS, and HUFA omega-3 Fish Oils. Supplements for SUPER Nutrition and Flavor - H2O Life Aquarium Foods etc.

Ich is almost like a cold for humans. If a human is eating well, sleeping well, is not stressed, etc. then they fight off the cold. Your fish should fight it off well. If it starts laying on the bottom breathing hard, then it's real sick. However, if it's eating well, usually things are fine.

 

Update: A day after these pictures were taken the ich was 90% gone. The next day it had completely cleared up. All that fish would eat was plain brine shrimp... it did the trick!

Thanks everybody for the advice!

 

You may want to consider trying to get the wrasse to feed on something other then Brine Shrimp. Since brine shrimp aren't oceanic organisms they do not have the sufficient nutritional properties like Omega 3 Fatty Acids etc. to properly sustain a fish for long periods if that is all it is eating. Brine Shrimp is like eating potato chips...empty calories.