Parasites OR ICH?

[robbie59]

Please help,
I woke up this morning and I found my dogface puffer swimming around like crazy. He has gained a small "something" on his fin and I can’t identify it. Looks like something is growing on there or jumped on..
It might even have eyes...the puffer doesn't like it, at all.
If you can help me that would be good, I want to keep this stuff out..
Also I have been treating for ich with coppersafe and I also have been adding some stuff for fungus that seems to work well.
On a side note I cleaned out my prefilter out yesterday and I found little live things on it squirming around. I wasn't excited about it and would like to know what it might be.
I have a 125 FOWLR with about 20#of live rock. and 3 inches of live sand..
Levels are great and everything seems clear.
I have a brown tang that was having trouble with fungus but is now in the clear. He's looking great..
What should I do about the puffer, can I take him out and scrape off this thing on his fin?

 

[robbie59]

another pic

 

[gatorcsm]

I'd keep an eye on it, see if more spots show up. I've had some unexplained spots on fish that end up being nothing... As far as those little critters, those are fine. They are copods and little critters. Good things to have, in fact. You want them.
Take a good look at all of the other fish, look at the eyes, and all of the fins. Take a look at that powder brown. If he doesn't have anything on it, it is most likely not ich, but you never know. Just do a really good inspection of them all.
Gator

 

[robbie59]

Thanks for the reply.
I have been checking out all the fish and I don’t see anything on any of them...no white spots and no other "bugs" catching a ride..
Nothing on the Brown Tang either. He has had fungus before but that has since gone away.
I added some copper this afternoon in hopes of killing off the bad guys and keeping ich out. This was recommended by the LFS..They use a something similar in their tanks every week.
I also did a 30% water change today’s also.
Everybody looks happy and well fed.
I looked into copods and I'm not sure if this is what I have in my tank. The only ones I have seen are on my prefilter and on another filter pad in my wet dry...
Their weird little things..
One more question, Is to much copper unsafe in a tank..I have a copper test kit and have been checking but i don’t know if this is very sensitive..

 

[cogreywolf]

Terry B, you said the following, and I quote:
If you look close enough you can see that these little spots are actually growing inside of the fins rays rather than attached to the outside of the fish. People are often fooled into thinking this is ich. This is an internal worm parasite and the treatment is completely different than ich
Can you please tell me more about these internal worm parasites. I have seen them on my fish occasionaly. They seem to go away on there own, but I would like to know more. Thanks for your help.