Floating Ich?? HELP FAST!!!

[golgi aparatus]

Can you see Ich floating around in the tank?? My tank looks to be full of small floating particles like tiny bubbles....I hope that it is not Ich. However, it appears that a bunch of these "particles" are on my coral beauty. Is it possible to see the Ich in the tank like this or am I losing my mind?
I need help FAST as I need to know wheter or not to give my coral beauty a freshwater dip or not!!

 

[beth]

No, that's not ich. Its probably is microbubbles.

 

[golgi aparatus]

Holy Cow, I feel special that BETH responded to me!! I cannot tell you Beth how happy I am to have you answer this thread!
All lastnight I was thinking it was microbubbles as well. My Coral Beauty is showing NO signs of Ich other than what appear to be the microbubbles all over her. I assume these bubbles show up on her more prominently due to her coloring??
All night last night I figured it could not be coincidence that these "specs" appeared on the fish at the same time that there is a HUGE amount of microbubbles in the tank. I hope that you are right.
Is it normal for these types of microbubbles to remain on some fish for a while giving the illusion of Ich??

 

[geridoc]

It is probably microbubbles, like beth said, but that isn't necessarily good news. Microbubbles can produce gill problems, so you don't want them. find the source, and eliminate them.

 

[golgi aparatus]

Here are a couple of images...not great I know, but all I can do..
The image of just the tank shows kinda what I can see except they are tiny bubble looking things. They are not streaming like they appear in the image.

 

[golgi aparatus]

What can cause Microbubbles??

 

[chevs10]

microbubbles can come from ur protein skimmer or if u have a wet dry and u dont add water that evaporated the pump can suck air and that can cause microbubbles

 

[golgi aparatus]

That makes sense. I'm going to shut my Protein skimmer off over night to see what that does to the microbubbles...
Does it make sense that I would see the bubbles only on my dark colored fish and not my other lighter colored ones?

 

[sepulatian]

Originally Posted by Golgi Aparatus
That makes sense. I'm going to shut my Protein skimmer off over night to see what that does to the microbubbles...
Does it make sense that I would see the bubbles only on my dark colored fish and not my other lighter colored ones?
Microbubbles don't attatch to all fish. It makes sense that you see them more on the dark ones though.

 

[golgi aparatus]

Once I have found the source of the microbubbles, aka Skimmer, how long could the microbubbles still remain on my coral beauty before I begin to really become concerned?
My coral beauty still has some of the bubbles on his skin a half a day after the bubbles have stopped....

 

[chevs10]

it could take a couple days to come off the coral beauty cause they get stuck on the scales.

 

[rykna]

They aren't little white strands are they???? Worm like????

 

[golgi aparatus]

Originally Posted by chevs10
it could take a couple days to come off the coral beauty cause they get stuck on the scales.

Thanks man, I can't explain to you how much this info helps put me at ease.
I have had an ich outbreak at one time in my past and was freakin out. It did not specifically look like ich to me, but any time you have spots on a fish, you know how it is.
I am glad to hear that microbubbles may take a few days to fall of a fish. That is good news to my ears!
They are not little white strands, just tiny tiny circular specs in water.

 

[rykna]

Good to hear

 

[golgi aparatus]

Man, I looked in my tank lastnight and those darn microbubbles were back!

Of course my coral beauty had those bubbles all over him again. Last week I turned off my skimmer for a few days and the bubbles stopped and dropped off the fish in a 3-4 days.
I have now turned off the skimmer again and hopefully the bubbles will subside. K
I guess my question is how do I determine why the bubbles are being created by the skimmer? I have a Coralife 65 Supperskimmer.
Does anyone else have this issue with skimmers?
What can I do??

 

[rykna]

Sorry...I tried a protein skimmer...I was not impressed to say the least...

 

[good alex]

i had microbubbles comming from my skimmer also. Just bought a filter sock and put it where the water comes out of the skimmer, and my microbubble problem was gone.
If you wanted to be sure it was your protein skimmer you could try turning off every piece of equipment one at a time to see if the microbubbles dissapear, and if they do then you have caught your culprit.

 

[rslinger]

your water to air mix. in your skimmer is not set right. or you use tap water and aqua safe or something like it that gives your fish a proctive coating. this stuff will make the skimmer produce tons of bubbles.

 

[v8eater]

Use a filter sock on the water coming out of the skimmer. This will take care of the microbubbles

 

[golgi aparatus]

should I remove the "bubble diffuser" box from my skimmer and only use the filter sock, or should I use it in conjunction with the sock? I have a Coralife Superskimmer 65.