Might have an issue with a new fish.

[Hdale85]

So I've had 4 new fish for about 5 days now, one is a flame angel and then 3 Chromis. I also have 3 small clown fish in my tank as well. They've all been doing great since the second day (the night I put them in they were all pretty freaked out until the next day lol). Today I was looking at them very closely just trying to check for any thing abnormal while I was feeding, and the flame angel has some tiny white spots on it. The ones on it's body are very small almost like a grain of sand but there are 3 spots on it's tail fin that seem a bit larger. 

 

So I'm not sure if these are stress spots or what, I know ich kind of looks like this but I just went and checked on him again and the spots seem to be clearing up now. The ones on his body I can't even see anymore and the ones on his tail are now more like the sand grain size. Other than the spots he's been acting perfectly fine, swimming very well and quite active. He's all around the rock and swimming through the little over hangs and tunnel and such and doing quite well. Initially I thought maybe it was just sand stuck to him but our sand is pretty coarse. So anyways just making this thread to sort of keep an eye on things and get a bit of input. Currently I think he's likely ok though. None of the other fish had any sort of spots at all. 

[Tamberav]

Could be the initial breakout of ich, never heard of "stress spots", fish can turn dark or pale when stressed. Keep a close eye on all the fish.

 

 

[Hdale85]

Yeah that's what I'm doing for now. I was reading on reefcentral and someone mentioned stress spots. 

[TN09]

Its hard to tell without pictures, but I wouldn't recommend having 3 clowns in one tank.

[Hdale85]

There were 4 of them. I got them when they were very small babies they were sold as "nano clowns". Since I got them one has turned female and the other 2 are males and have been doing pretty good. I wish I had a good enough camera to show the spots but honestly they wouldn't even show up on my cell phone camera they are that small. 

 

The clowns have actually been in my tank since it was a month old. Tank has been up about 6 months now. 

[Hdale85]

Hmm well as of right now all the spots have completely cleared up. So far nothing on any of the other fish. 

[Hdale85]

So I think I figured out what the spots were, at night when the lights are off the flame angel goes between the HOB and the tank and rubs up against both so I think it was just debris from that. I've seen it one other time now and he went away in a couple hours of the lights being on just like last time and that night I had looked to see where he was staying and it was right behind the bottom of the HOB intake area. 

[Tamberav]

Part of ich's lifecycle is spots disappearing but it could be debris too, duno without a picture.

 

6 months is a very short time and really means little in this case. People say not to have 3 clowns (unless a very large tank) because as they mature, a pair may become a breeding pair and they can become incredibly aggressive and the 3rd could possibly be rejected and maybe killed.

[Clown79]

Ich can appear during times of stress.

 

Ich is only visible for a short period of time, it doesn't mean it's gone if it was ich. There are different cycles with ich.

 

What size tank are all these fish in?

[brandon429]

 based on that, your tank is infected even when they don't show the symptoms. You have a very specific option on how to undo that. 99% will not, and will keep the infection situation. that thread shows how to search to undo it.

 

in the searching it will show that you'd have to remove the fish, be fishless for 76 days, and only input fish that have been through proper qt. Its lots of work I know, but they'll just die without it so in the end its really the only way to keep the fish at all isn't it?

 

an important detail from above is that even if your fish showed no signs of spots, the whole tank is infected with ich now simply due to skipping the fallow phase in your display tank before adding them.