The white spot disease or the saltwater ich is characterized by white salt like spots on the body and fins on the fish. It is often mistaken to be a minor issue and left uncared by amateur. Though it spreads slowly, it can reach a fatal stage without alarm and then you will have no solution to prevent your fish. The best and the first way towards prevention is awareness. Let’s look into details what these spots actually are.
Saltwater ich is a disease caused by minute parasites of Cryptocaryon or Oodinium. These parasites implant themselves in the fish’s skin and gills, causing immense exasperation. If you notice symptoms like loss of appetite, rapid breathing and scratching in your fishes, it is probably because of the ich. Since these parasites appear first on the pectoral fins, fish may swim with folded or clamped fins. As the disease worsens, the spots will become more wide spread and the eyes of the infected fish may become cloudy. A minor fungal infection may also emerge on the skin. The reason for their slow growth lies in the fact that these parasites feed and develop for a few days, then drop off the fish to get into reproduction. They recline on the tank base in an encysted condition for quite a few days or weeks and grow-up. Each cyst then rips open, releasing dozens to hundreds of new parasites to attack more of the amphibians. When they grow more in number, a single fish gets attacked by a bunch of these parasites, making it difficult for the fish to survive.
These parasites are found in nature and you might as well assume that when you bring in a new fish to add to your tank, it might already have caught it from its previous source and most likely to be transferred into the other fishes in your tank. The only prevention you can take in this case is to quarantine the new additions for a few days prior to adding them in the main tank where it might mess with the other inhabitants and corals. This way you can be able to assure that the fish is healthy and safe. However, if your main tank fish has already caught this disease, you must immediately transfer it to quarantine or any other healing tank if available. If you are really enthusiastic about the hobby of reef keeping, you must get a quarantine tank in advance for the many unforeseen times including this one.
For medication, you will have to wait for the parasites to fall off. Only then can you consider them ich free and begin the medication for its healing. The best option I would recommend you is to purchase fishes only from sources where they keep the fishes in a medicated tank. Coming to treatment, the simplest and the most effective one is copper treatment.
This treatment must not be carried out in the main tank as it is most likely to kill corals and other invertebrates.
Remember, copper is a toxin and must be used in a very small quantity according to the guidelines of the manufacturer. Use a copper test kit to ensure that you are not overdosing them. Other ways used for treatment of both fresh water and salt water ich are high wattage UV sterilizers and diatom filters. The superior diatom filters can help in removing Cryptocaryon out of the water during its free-floating stage. A suitably sized UV sterilizer will also kill the free-floating Cryptocaryon. Here are the two products we recommend for effective treatment of ich. They are found to be of great help.
Mardel CopperSafe Fish Treatment
However, infection will occur no matter how efficiently the fish have been treated if Cryptocaryon is not eliminated from the main tank, which can be attained by keeping the tank fish free for at least 4 weeks. This way the parasites will complete their cycle with the fish host and will die for good. After that you can clean your tank religiously cleaning all the filters and large water change. That should be enough to get your fishes free from the irritating iches.