Please help, not sure what to do!

[melhunny]

System:
29g biocube (stock)
Parameters:
Salinity: 1.022
ph: 8.2
Ammonia: 0
Nitrates 20 ppm
Nitrites: 0
Stock:
1 Flame Angel (recently deceased)
2 ocellaris clowns
1 pink spotted shrimp goby
1 scooter blenny
Inverts: brittle star, emerald crab, snails & hermits
Corals: 1 Wells, 1 Calastria, 1 Torch, and some 'shrooms
On Nov. 29th we moved the tank (it had been running for 3 months prior to the move). About 6 hours after the move, the Flame developed sugary looking spots all over him. The following morning the clowns were exhibiting a couple small white spots on the ends of their fins. None of the fish were rubbing on rocks or anything, nor were they heavily breathing, and all were eating like pigs. We assumed it was Ich and since 3 of the 5 fish appeared to have it our LFS told us to use Herbtana. We started treating on 11/30. All of the fish appeared to be getting be getting better. The spots all disappeared for about 4 days. Then on the 12/6 the Flame was covered in spots again around 11:30 p.m. By the morning he was gone. We removed the clowns and goby to a QT tank (12/7) even though none of them were showing signs (goby never did, and clowns seemed quite healthy the entire time except for a couple spots that went away in about a day).
Today we arrived home from work and the clowns are acting very funny. Laying a lot on the bottom of the tank. The white stripe by their head seems faded. They are breathing very heavy. And the smaller clown's fins appear to be eroding.
The goby still appears to be quite healthy. I'm worried about leaving him in the QT tank with the clowns. Should we leave them all in there? Or should I move the goby back to the main tank with the scooter blenny (shows no signs of anything the entire time).
What do you think is wrong with the clowns? How would you go about treating them? I'm worried everything is crashing and we're going to lose the fish. PLEASE HELP! Thank you so so so much!

 

[flower]

So sorry to hear of all the problems.
The angel got stressed from the move, the ich parasite must have been already in the tank but because the fish were healthy they had no symptoms.
Ich affects the gills and they can't breathe, that is why they are breathing heavy. The rotted fins is either, because they are so sick the CUC is already trying to eat them, or they have a secondary infection.
QT at this point isn't going to help, the tank is infected. Since this is a reef you can only use the reef safe medicines, you don't have much time. These meds are almost usless, but better than nothing.
If you can remove all fish for 6 to 8 weeks the system will clear because the ich can't live without a host (fish only inverts are not affected)

 

[peasofme]

even though some fish may not show signs. they still have ich. anything can carry including rocks, substrate, crabs, etc they just wont be affected by it. ich needs fish to live and all ich will die if fishless for 2 months. brittle star, emerald crab, and hermits will aid in your fish's deaths. if you dont treat the ich properly with medication you will probably lose them. copper is said to be the best but you must test its levels daily or you will poison them. other methods dont really work. copper is also deadly to any non-fish life in your tanks. be careful. this is why quarantining any new fish for 2 months is necessary. i lost my whole tank to ich when i started this hobby. its no joke. it turned me off from saltwater for a good year or so. i'm doing much better this time around being safer.

 

[richl]

Sorry you are having problems. I went through this too when I was new to the hobby, losing a lot of fish, time and money to Ick. I now have a 20 gal quarantine tank where all new arrivals spend 5 weeks, including 3 full weeks in hyposalinity. This pretty much guarantees you are not bringing ick into the display tank. Don't be afraid to try hypo. It's easy and it works very well. Since I switched to this method about 9 months ago, I have not lost a single fish in my DT to disease. Hope this helps