Purple firefish suddenly ill. Please help!!!!

Hi,

Last Friday night I fed my oscillaris clown and purple FF. Both ate great and looked healthy. I tested the water earlier that day:

Ph: 8.2
Temp: 82 (pretty steady here)
SG: 1.024
Nitrate: 0
All other major tests mag, cal, phosphate, iodide were within normal parameters.

I got home tonight at 6:30 pm and found the FF on the bottom against the glass breathing heavy and struggling to stay balanced. Stomach is sunken in. The skin is grayish, I see tiny 1mm or less white specks. I had noticed earlier in the week a whit blotch about 2mm on one of her forward fins. I've been keeping an eye on it and hadn't noticed any changes. Fin colors actually look bright and normal.

Tanks been running for 4 months since a move to my new place. Two years before that.

Clown has never chased it around. They've been together now 2.5 months with no issues and I don't see any new aggression.

I had introduced the PF and and a Neon goby together. Within a week I saw ich on the neon. I treated w various medications including medicated food and within two weeks the symptoms were
Mostly gone. Water tested great all along. It's been almost two months with no symptoms, except I noticed starting last week the FF would sometimes scrape against rocks. It happened very rarely and didn't see any other symptoms.

Could it be the ich again? I've never heard of ich killing so quickly after almost no symptoms since the outbreak.

I'm going to take her out and QT, but I don't have high hopes. Any thoughts?

I can't get a good picture. In fact, the ones I did take she came out looking great!

Thanks!

28g nanocube
4inch substrate
No protein skimmer
Use a refugium with macro
No crabs

 

Welcome to FishLore! Sorry you have illness in your tank. Ich has a way of coming back and coming back and coming back if not dealt with correctly and decisively.

Aquarist48 has compiled very useful info about it. I hope it helps you as it helped me a while back.

https://www.fishlore.com/aquariumfishforum/threads/ich-ick-life-cycle-and-natural-treatment.153206/

 

Hi, sorry about the out break-they happen sometimes. For marine ich the treatments can be different from Freshwater in many ways. I have used the Hyposalinity, (low salinity) method for my fish in the past with great success. A salt level of 16ppt or approximately 1.009-1.010sg at 78-80f for 14 days. The salinity should be increased after the 14days or syptoms are gone very slowly at the rate of .001-.002sg per day due to fish being reintroduced to higher sg is very dangerous. I would strongly suggest the use of a refractometer or salinity monitor for use in this type of treatment due to swingarm hydrometers being too inaccurate. I also suggest as much as 50% WC's every day if possible to help treatment along. There is the med. formalin you could also research, (as you may want to do for this method as well). The lower sg/WC plan works for me and I used it last on my new Ytang less than a year ago-good luck.

Oh yeah, and welcome to Fishlore !

 

Hi! Thanks for the welcome and advise.

Sooo..... She didn't make it. I didn't think she'd pull through given how bad she was. I was not able to identify the usual symptoms of the white spots on her.

Do you have any suggestions of what it may have been? I still have an oscillaris that I'd rather not isolate unless necessary due to stress and difficulty catching him. The FF went from healthy, fat, active to dead in 60 hours.

I took a good look at the body and other than the stomach I couldn't see anything.

One question I've had that I can't find an answer to:

I had that ich break out in February where I didn't lose any of the fish. The firefish showed very few symptoms and the clown none at all. The worst fish was a neon goby, I used him as a measure of progress. Once he recuperated and was fine for two weeks, I stopped medicating. The neon disappeared in early May (I think a crab was the culprit).

The question: let's assume the fish developed an immunity to Ich. Does that mean the ich no longer have a host or are they just kept at bay by the fish's own immunity system. If the former, can I assume the ich will die off after 1.5 months as I've seen recommended?

 

There is a debate as to whether M. Ich ever goes away-I think not for most. The fish may develop an immunity to symptoms but the ich can reappear due to some stressor which can be any # of factors including, water params off/fluctuating, lack of a wide variety of nutritious foods, an overly aggressive fish in the tank etc. IMO the closest thing to a cure all is optimal water quality and stressors kept at bay which is a work in progress. In a tank prior to the one I have now I would get a recurrence of ich but I would just let the fish's immune system do it's job and the fish were usually fine and on a rare occasion not. If the problem in your tank gets out of hand I can only suggest following these principles and at worst QT with hyposalinity, formalin or copper, (not a combination of any) which is up to you, but I choose low salinity. Good luck and sorry for your loss.

 

Thanks. What you state has been my long held opinion until this incident. I've done a ton of reading and have seen a dozen POVs on this.

Thanks again!

 

Thanks jomolager for your advice. I checked out the site and what stands out for me is the temp rise. I've read up on this, but I've never seen anyone recommend 86 F. Is that high a temp safe for corals?

 

That thread is for Freshwater ich not Saltwater .

 

Should have seen that. Thanks!