White Spots and no QT tank

[sunken ship]

The other day i noticed that my Coral Beauty has a few white spots on her. I don't have a QT tank and i have a few corals, so i can't medicate the tank. I bought some Thera+A food as recommended by my LFS. Is there any thing else I can do? Would a cleaner shrimp or 2 help?
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18G reef w/ 20# LR
Penguin 170 filter
2 50W half and half lights
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 20
PH 8.3
1 Coral Beauty
1 Cleaner Goby
2 Domino Damsels
1 CB Shrimp
6 Scarlet Hermits
1 Polyp Rock
1 Bubble Coral

 

[simm]

Cleaners may and may not help. I wouldnt think they would help enough. QT is really the only way to go since you dont want to medicate your main tank. Hyposalinity would be the best bet but this cant be done in main tank!!

 

[sunken ship]

thanks simm, I think i'm going to try a cleaner shrimp. I don't have the money to set up a QT tank at the moment, and i think a cleaner shrimp would be a nice addition to my tank.

 

[timsedwards]

At the risk of Beth and Terry's wrath, have you considered reef safe treaments. Not just any treatment, but Kents RX-P (sold on this site) cured my ich about 6 weeks ago. You have to use it differently t how it says on the bottle (which is too high a dosage) and in conjuction with Poly-Ox (also by Kent) which will then remove any harmful effects on the tank out via your skimmer (presuming you have one, which you need).
If you want more info then feel free to ask, its not ideal but better than watching him suffer slowly IMO.
All the best,
Tim.

 

[timsedwards]

btw why is your nitrate so high? That could cause the stress on the fish which would help bring out the disease. Let me know if you have just finished cycling or something.
Tim.

 

[sunken ship]

I don't have a protein skimmer. I don't have the money to spend on one not to mention they all seem like overkill on an 18 gallon tank. All of the skimmers I have seen are for tanks up to 100g.
I put my cleaner shrimp in today and he's already working overtime. Seems to be helping.

 

[timsedwards]

OK then you cannot use RXP and PolyOX treatment without a protein skimmer.
You didnt answer the main question tho, why is your nitrate 20? This could be the big cause which not an army of 1000 cleaner shrimps will sort out. Admittedly a nitrate reading of 20 is lethal, but can easily kick start something in sensitive fish.
If you let me know together we can try and sort out what is happening.
All the best,
Tim.