Whitespot affecting only one fish

[Bigman]

Hey Folks

I recently bought a royal gramma, It was in QT for 2 weeks before adding to the reef and it settled very well, no signs of stress and its feeding well, now it has whitespot for almost 2 weeks, not quite sure why the whitespot has broke out but my plans are to put all the fish in QT using hypo as ive had great success using the hypo method before.

I just wondered how can the whitespot only be affecting one fish in the system.

Thanks in advance

Paul.

[Cheesy_Puffs]

Our Coral Beauty Angle also has a single white spot.

The fish is also exhibiting some rubbing on the live rock but only occasionally, otherwise he seems to be acting normal.

I'm not quite sure if I should treat for ick and set up a hospital tank or just kind of observe the fish in the display tank.


:sad1:

If it happens to be ick, would hypo be the way to go since its an angle or would the normal ick medicine be fine?

tank parameters are normal

NH3 - 0
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 0
PH- 7.8 - 8.0

Tank's been set up for 5 weeks, with an algae bloom in process

:(

[ATJ]

Paul,

Has the gramma actually had spots for 2 weeks? If so, it is unlikely to be "Ich".

The parasite that causes "Ich", Cryptocaryon irritans, has a set life cycle. The feeding stage, trophont only attaches to the fish for 3 to 7 days after which it drops off. The detached trophonts swim to the bottom where they form a cyst and start to divide. This stage is called a tomont. The tomont divides for 3 to 28 days and in that time up to 200 tomites are formed inside the cyst. When reproduction is complete (3 to 28 days after encystment), the tomites break out of the cyst and becomes an infective theront. Theronts seek out a host and infect them.

If it is "Ich", the reason the other fish don't show signs could be because the current fish have acquired an immunity (through prior contact with the parasite). It could also be because they just haven't yet become infected and may start to show signs over the next week or so.

See Marine "Ich" (http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/marineich.html) for more information.

It is good that you quarantined your fish, however, as you have discovered, two weeks is not really long enough. I recommend a full 6 weeks as this gives a much better chance of parasites or diseases becoming visible before the fish are moved to the main tank.

Cheesy_Puffs,

There are only two practical and effective treatments for "Ich", hyposalinity and copper. Most of the "normal Ich medicines" are either copper or ineffective. Hyposalinity is by far the safest method (in my opinion) but you need to have an accurate method to measure specific gravity or salinity. A refractometer is highly recommended.

[Bigman]

Firstly thanks for the reply

The gramma only shows spots for a couple of days or so at a time and then the cysts fall off only to return with more force. After having suffered an ich outbreak before i am positive that this is ich as well as all the symtoms are the same, just curious as to why only one fish was affected.

I do beleive the theory that they can build an immunity to ich, i only have one fish from the previous outbreak of ich that survived but the other inabitants are new stock however its possible they could have encountered the ich before in the lfs.


Cheesy_Puffs,

As ATJ says (in his opinion, and mine too) hypo is the safest way to go, i treated my previous outbreak of ich with the in tank cures etc with no success, spent a lot of money on cures and still lost fish. I setup a QT tank to use the hypo method and it worked for me. Again a refractometer is highly recommended.

[ATJ]

Paul,

Based on the studies into immunity to C. irritans, the fish have to become fairly severly infected in order to acquire an immunity - at least full protection. With milder infections it is possible they may only acquire partial immunity which means they can still host the parasite.

I would certainly be considering treating all the fish with hyposalinity to eliminate any risk of the other fish being carriers.

[Bigman]

Im going to spend the afternoon tearing the tank down to catch the fish, the QT tank is on stand by. Although only one fish shows signs i had already decided to treat all with hypo to be safe, hopefully this time i wont loose a single fish.

[Cheesy_Puffs]

Thanks for the reply!

:wave:

I guess we will start a QT tank as well.

:reading: