Ich but without the symptoms

[Arvi]

Hi, my citron goby appears to have ich but is showing absolutely no symptoms of it aside from the white spots. It’s readily eating the food I offer it, it’s fins are moving normally and seems to have no problems with breathing. Should I do something or just let the fish fight it off?

[Clown79]

Ich has several stages, some fish will show symptoms right away, others may take longer.

 

Without removing the fish to treat it in a hospital tank and letting your tank go fallow for 8 weeks, the parasite will still be in the tank. Therefore the existing fish and any other fish will get reinfected.

[Arvi]

Thanks, guess I’ll have to set up a hospital tank.

[Clown79]

Is this fish a new addition?

[Humblefish]

What other fish do you have with the goby? Most gobies are hardy enough to "manage" ich without treatment, but one of his tankmates may fall into a different category.

[mystersyster]

I've been in the same place before. Set up hospital tanks multiple times. Most fish we have, aside from Tangs are hardy enough to develop immunity, which will essentially serve the same purpose as a fallow tank. Overtime though, they can lose that immunity and when a frag introducted with Ich cysts that burst in your tank, they can become infected again. I personally leave it up to Darwin now. I've only ever lost a fish in a hospital tank from Ich. The rest are doing well a few years later. Just food for thought. 

[Firefish15]

I've got a yellow clown goby that's in pretty much the same situation as your citron goby. My red firefish also had symptoms when he first got into the tank, but he's fine now. I've just been focusing on keeping the tank in good condition for the fish. Varied diet, good habitat, great water parameters, lots of flow, compatible tank mates. I'm just going to try waiting it out as I did for the firefish.

[Tamberav]

I pulled all mine for flukes and doing TTM "just because" - my fish seem to be doing fine through the process but I didn't let them get very sick to begin with and they are fatties. Some of my fish are expensive or a bit harder to find though so it would drive me crazy to know disease was in my tank and a stressful event could kill them from it. Mostly I just worry about secondary infections popping up. I would be tempted to try 'management' if my fish were the common variety. 

 

 

[Humblefish]

Acanthurus Tangs often have the most difficult time with ich, as their mucous coats are naturally reduced in composition. As a general rule, fish with thick slime coats are fairly ich resistant whereas the opposite is true for species with thin slime coats. Water volume also comes into play, as large tanks dilute the concentration of free swimming parasites.

 

Also, it's important to be sure you are in fact dealing with ich. Velvet can look very similar in the early going, but is a much more virulent pathogen.

[Arvi]

17 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Is this fish a new addition?

It’s been in the tank for just over 3 weeks now. 

15 hours ago, Humblefish said:

What other fish do you have with the goby? Most gobies are hardy enough to "manage" ich without treatment, but one of his tankmates may fall into a different category.

Currently, the goby is the only fish in the tank.

[Arvi]

Thanks for all the advice. For now I’ll just keep observing the fish and have a hospital tank on standby.

 

[mcarroll]

On 12/9/2018 at 4:25 AM, Arvi said:

Thanks for all the advice. For now I’ll just keep observing the fish and have a hospital tank on standby.

 

How's your guy doing??

 

Assuming he cleared up, just take your time before adding any new fish.  

 

Take a few months just to observe him, add corals and update your CUC to match the tank's new nutrient load.

 

With a few months of "healthy time" under his belt, there will be nothing left to worry about for new fish.

 

This is a good schedule for stocking a new tank, BTW, and really has little/nothing to do with ich. 😉 

 

Of course new fish are a potential worry themselves, but you mitigate that just by buying smart, taking your time and by not adding more than one fish at a time until the tank (and you) are well-seasoned to handle the stress of new fish.