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Fish has white spots after hot day


Barnacle

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A few days ago it was really hot out and my tank was around 85F for a few hours. I used frozen water bottles to slowly lower the temp back down to 78. I set up a fan, closed all the blinds in that room, and it hasn't been higher than 82F since.(Also ordered an Ice Probe chiller). Since that day my damsel has had a white spot on his right side. It almost looks like his scales have lost their color. He wasn't eating so last night I did a freshwater dip for 4 minutes. Today his appetite has improved.


Should I be concerned? I've attached a photo.

post-84651-0-22119300-1404778837_thumb.jpg

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It is possible that the higher temperature caused the fish to get stressed which in turn could weaken it's immune system. Although I think this is highly unlikely due to the fact that the temperature was not high for long and the damsel started showing signs of illness so quickly. What are your other water parameters?

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It is possible that the higher temperature caused the fish to get stressed which in turn could weaken it's immune system. Although I think this is highly unlikely due to the fact that the temperature was not high for long and the damsel started showing signs of illness so quickly. What are your other water parameters?
Off the top of my head(logbook is at home)Nitrate very lowpH 7.0Salinity 1.025All corals and other inverts are doing great.
You shouldn't need a chiller. Just increase evaporation via fans.
How many degrees below ambient is possible with this method? I anticipate ambient temperatures in the 90's come August.

 

Some more info:Fluval spec1 damsel1 small cleaner shrimpA few hermits and snails2 zoa frags1 GSP frag2 small Ricordea Florida frags1 aiptasia hitchhikerIs it possible the fish was stung by the aiptasia or a coral?

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Once again it is possible that he was stung but very unlikely. The only thing that could possibly sing him would be the aphasia but it is very uncommon. How large is the aiptasia? (I recommend getting rid of that aiptasia asap due to the fact that it can spread very quickly and start killing off your corals. Go to your LFS and pick up some aiptasia x)



Also how long has the tank been up and running?

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Aiptasia is tiny and right in the middle of a zoa frag, so I've been putting it off for a couple weeks now.

 

Tanks been up for about 3 months now. Started with LFS mixed salt water and a nice piece of liverock. Fish was added immediately but weekly testing(along with water change) indicated there was virtually no cycle. About a month in there was a [relatively] small diatom bloom and two months in there was a Cyanobacteria bloom after I missed a water change. A large water change and substrate vacuum fixed that.

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hmm well I would just watch the damsel and make sure he doesn't get worse. One thing you can do that seems to work for me is putting garlic extract directly in the water or in your fish food prior to feeding. It seems to help boost their immune systems as well as stimulate them to eat (although picky eating is not usually an issue with damsels).

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RIP fish


My lights turned off about 20 minutes ago, but I turned them back to about 10 minutes ago to check something. The fish was at the bottom of the tank looked like he was having a seizure. This went on for about 5 seconds until he flipped upside down and stopped moving.

He would not eat earlier today, but was otherwise behaving normal.

All corals, hermits, snails, cleaner shrimp are active and look alright.

If this was some sort of disease when will it be safe to add a new fish?

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When I had a 20g, I had several fish and in summer it always ran 85-86 degrees in the day without any problems. Not saying temp isn't an issue but temp alone shouldn't harm a damsel. I would think he already had something and he temp exacerbated it.

 

How long did you have the damsel?

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SquishyFishy

Since you are discussing temps let me ask, very hot here and our AC is having some issues keeping our air at 77 indoors... my tank also got up to a little above 80 when I keep it at 77.5 or so almost always, so I set up my fan also. But the opposite happened. I accidentally left it on during the night and it got down to 74.8!!! Have not noticed any adverse effects except on the cloves. They are not opening as usual now...they also got manhandled by the emerald and he flipped them over several times so I attributed their behavior to that. But it's been a couple weeks since that incident so now I am suspecting the low temps. Any thoughts?

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It was probably the dramatic change from high to low that pissed them off. 74.8 is fine but probably not so fine if it was 80 during the day.

 

During a power outage in winter, my tank dropped to just below 70 degrees. I lost a bangaii cardinal but thats it. The only other thing that showed stress was the two flower anemones as they bailed off the rocks but survived just fine. The anemones had no flow either for probably 14 hours so could have been other factors too.

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