Please help!

Owww, sounds like velvet to me. Unfortunately marine velvet is one of the WORST parasites you can have in a tank. juliew, I'm NOT trying to scare you or blow it out of proportion BUT velvet is BAD NEWS. It goes for the gills first so if you can see it, it might be too late. I would try to get the fish out at all cost. I am a FIRM believer in natural remedies but fighting velvet here at the store I KNOW it is TOUGH to erradicate W/O Cu. The only thing I've seen fight it that was reef safe was REVIVE by I believe Fish Vet. It is a yellow liquid that has a little acriflavine in it, not enough to wreak havoc in a reef but enough to be effective.
Velvet is so tough because it can utilize light so it can live in a tank even w/o a host. I would try to get the fish out, do many large W/C to flush the velvet out and try the Revive. In addition I would feed the remaining fish heavily and keep them in good health.

Good luck and keep us informed!!

 

Thanks to all of you for your help/suggestions.

Right now, it looks a little better - but it's still easy to see. He continues to act okay & is still eating.

I'm going to try my best to get him back into the QT. Wish me luck!

julie

 

I tried for 2 hours to get the fish, with no luck.

However, today I see only a couple of spots - the rest are gone! He's eating & breathing okay......

I guess he doesn't have marine velvet - not sure what was on him, but he seems fine.

Thanks again for your help!

julie

 

Hey Julie, the slime coat of any fish comes into play only because the thinner the slime coat the easier it is for the ick to burrow in to the skin of that fish. The real key to avoiding ick is to have an almost perfectly stable environment and insuring that your fish are fortified to have the strongest immune system possible.
It is well documented that ick is stress induced. Much like people, you see some walking around 2-3 times a year with a "cold" while others never seem to get sick. This is due to the sick person having more stress in their life (runs down their immune system) and improper nutrition (further adds to compromising the immune system). In the aquarium, a closed system, when there is ick present, it reproduces in it's cycle at a rate most systems can not cope with and so it "saturates" the environment.
If your fish have proper nutrition and a healthy immune system, they will "get the sniffles" but ward off the ick. If there are no viable available hosts the ick runs it's cycle and dies off. So, in conclusion, the less stress in the tank (peaceful tank mates, steady parameters, good nutrition, moderate not excessive water changes and good filtration) are all factors to avoiding ick break outs in the aquarium.

 

Thanks unclejed -

Everybody seems to be happy right now - no fighting & my params are holding steady, so hopefully things will be all right.

julie

 

Good! Great job nursing them back to health!!