possible ich?

S

surferido

funky buttlovin
i noticed the other day that my longnose hawkfish had a small bump on the nose just to see it disappear and now i noticed a white spot on the anal fin but it is a little bit bigger than a ball point in a pen....when he is facing a certain way i can tell it isnt part of the fin. that is the only place on him where the spot is...i hope it isnt ich...and i dont want to lose this fish..and he isnt scratching himself against anything
 
All spots that pop up on fish arent ick.And just because a fish get ick,doesnt mean it going to turn belly up.
Just watch him close and dont worry untill you see him stop eating.
 
It definitely 100% isn't ich (Ichthyophthirius multifilis) because that's a freshwater disease. It could be marine whitespot (Cryptocaryon irritans) which has similar symptoms but is a completely different parasite.

As yote said they are many different things that can cause whitespots so I would just observe it closely for now.
 
cthegame said:
My clown fish, tang and Coral beauty have all had ich at one point.
Click to expand...

I still think I'm right on this one, they are different parasites that live in different types of water, therefore FW ich (Ichthyophthirius multifilis) cannot infect marine fish and marine whitespot (Cryptocaryon irritans) cannot infect FW fish, a search on google will show hundreds of sites confirming this. In fact, one of the ways to treat marine whitespot is to perform a freshwater dip or hyposalinity, which suggests the parasite cannot live in freshwater. I've also heard, but cannot confirm, that a freshwater fish with ich can be treated in a saltwater dip.

It is impossible for a marine fish to catch Ichthyophthirius multifilis unless they are an anadromous marine fish like salmon that caught the disease in freshwater.

Here is a link that might explain it better:

http://saltwaterfish.typepad.com/re...r-context-that-would-be-a-baffling-state.html
 
the title of the thread (i.e. the point) is "possible ich?" I answered that question by stating it couldn't be ich. I think it is important to call it by the correct name as some treatments that apply for one do not apply for the other.

I'm not trying to start an argument, I was merely correcting a common misconception. Is the point of the forum not to learn from others and better ourselves in reefkeeping? I have come here to learn from others and share my own experiences with those that require help.
 
even if it isnt the ich parasite that is a freshwater parasite in the marine world we still refer to it as ich and marine treatments for it will also refer to it as ich
 
yes you're right. :Cheers:

for as long as i can remember, it was referred to as Ich in the marine hobby too. anyways, you;re still correct.
 
i agree it's often called ich, it's probably because people were keeping freshwater fish before marine and saw it looked the same and thought it was.

I was probably being a bit pedantic but i think it's important to get things right in case errors are made as a result.

:Buds:
 
Dustin is right, it is referred to as "marine ich" or just "ich". 99.999% of people don't care about the technical aspect of it (the exact parasite that causes it and the differences between it and freshwater parasites), they just want it to go away. I don't think it's helpful to tell people that "ich doesn't exist in saltwater" because what everyone knows as ich DOES exist in saltwater. The particular disease that causes white spots on marine fish IS referred to as ich. Like it or not, it is what it is.

Chickenpox is technically not a pox. But people still refer to it as chickenpox, and everyone knows what they are talking about when they discuss chickenpox. Chickenpox is caused by a form of the herpes virus, not an orthopoxvirus, which cause the pox diseases. So if someone is online trying to research chickenpox, it really does them no favors to point out (as helpful as you may be trying to be), that they are incorrect in referring to the red spots on their kid as chickenpox and should instead be researching herpes.

Get what I'm saying?
 
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I get what you're saying but, if I take your example of an online search, if I type in "ich" into google the first result is

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/ich.htm

this site then describes something very similar to marine whitespot and suggests treatment by raising the temperature, this could be disasterous in a reef tank as temperature stability is obviously very important.

They then suggest copper meds being put straight into the tank which again would be game over for a reef tank.

Now I know most people would know you can't do these things in a reef tank but some people new to the hobby will not. I'm not saying this is likely but it could happen and I personally think it's best to avoid any confusion.

However, if you want to call it ich I'll know you are referring to marine whitespot in future :D
 
There is no treatment for ich that is 100% reef safe. Raising the tank temp, hyposalinity and copper are all common treatments for ich, but like you said, none are safe in a reef tank, and if someone did enough research to determine it was ich in the first place, they could easily find that out too. Or they could come here and ask :) Chances are, if someone is at the point where they are keeping a reef tank, they will know that these treatments are harmful to inverts.
 
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mblack said:
I get what you're saying but, if I take your example of an online search, if I type in "ich" into google the first result is

http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/disease/p/ich.htm

this site then describes something very similar to marine whitespot and suggests treatment by raising the temperature, this could be disasterous in a reef tank as temperature stability is obviously very important.

They then suggest copper meds being put straight into the tank which again would be game over for a reef tank.

Now I know most people would know you can't do these things in a reef tank but some people new to the hobby will not. I'm not saying this is likely but it could happen and I personally think it's best to avoid any confusion.

However, if you want to call it ich I'll know you are referring to marine whitespot in future :D
Click to expand...

but.....what if you do this
 
I usually don't comment in any of these ich threads because no one should have to worry about it if they properly qt'ed all fish beforehand, but I must say that was a great analogy Biff posted. :)
 

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