one spot...Ick?

[jarvis]

I have a firefire fish that has developed one white spot. It was like this for about 3 weeks and has not spread on him or to other fish. It looks like a grain of sand or salt. I do run ozone. He is eating. and shows very little disconfort. Does it sound like ick or is it something else. Could it posible be a wound from a minifeatherduster tube. He sometimes darts in and out of rockwork lightning fast. This is also the fish that made it into my overflow through the eggcrate. Silly little fella.

 

[beth]

No, not ich. Probably just a single parasite. Try just offering it garlic soaked food.

 

[jarvis]

Went with the garlic treatment. I soaked brine in the

[hr]
broken open garlic gel tabs. rinsed it in tap water and added it to the tank. Now my pink tipped conti is doing some very funky stuff now. It has a large base better yet huge. tentical show mild discoloration slightly yellow near the tips elongated tenticals too. I have seen him do some weird stuff before but not like this. Is this just one of those weird things they do? Im going to run my skimmer on full force overnight to get the oil out if that is the culprit. He does not smell funky and apears not to be melting. Tested NH3/NH4=0 and NO2=0 didnt bother with NO3 it was undetectable a few days ago. I will check tomorrow morning.

 

[beth]

The procedure for garlic is adding it to the food, NOT the tank.
Also, why would your rinse off the garlic? There is a garlic extract sold for the hobby. Use that or use freshly minced garlic....not the bottled kind that you get in the grocercy store.

 

[jarvis]

I rinsed the brine after soaking for a few hours, just for a second due to the garlic soaked in the food and just rinsed the excess garlic off. That way it would not mess with my levels as much. I have heard of somepeople useing the garlic gel from the

[hr]
. However I should have went with the most natral aproach to begin with. Nothing can be wrong with pure fresh garlic. Condi is back to normal. guess it was just one of those things. However, I think the very mild yellowness near the tips were due to mild stress of having the oilly substance in the water. The condi is in the water and is placed where he can reach the surface of the water. All other corals are fine and doing well.

 

[julie]

Can you treat single parasites with things other than garlic?

 

[beth]

Well, yes. I only recommend garlic as a treatment as an alternative to doing nothing. When people place fish in reef tanks and don't want to rip their tank apart to get a sick fish out, there really is no viable means of treating. Garlic is a homeopathic treatment for parasites, with some mild antibiotic quality to it as well. It, however, is not really a medication or even a treatment. But, its better than nothing.

 

[jarvis]

Beth thanks for the advice and following up. Also have people had sucess with luring fish into the net with food? I did this once to get out a damsel. If only everything was as trusting as my cleaner shrimp that will eat on my hand.

 

[timsedwards]

Garlic -
it is best to use Kents Garlic Extreme, all you do is add two drops of this to the defrosted food or tablet to soak it up and that is it! Garlic is like a vitamin tablet, its good for general maintainance and building up your immune system but will not cure anything, although it can hold it at bay for a while. Pepper and Chillis believe it or not is very good for killing parasites, thats what is in Kent's RX-P which causes the fish to shed extra mucus and hence the parasite, then top up with Poly-Ox the next day (natural freshwater plant extract), then leave for a day, then in theory it should be cured, although it sometimes takes a few '3 day' cycles. Just keep an eye on the skimmer as there is a lot of organic matter as a result.
All the best,
Tim.

 

[timsedwards]

sorry terry this is the one thread I forgot the phrase 'i do not recommend it yet', if you check out the other threads where i have commented on it I have said that because you are right, I do not know if this works yet, but if it does I will recommend it.
Sorry for any inconvinience caused,
Tim.