Marine ich-- maybe?

[Hypancistrus]

My fiance and I started a 29 gallon saltwater tank in early spring. It's about 8 months old at this point. It has 60 lbs of liverock in it, some snails, hermit crabs, an emerald crab, some sort of mussel that came with the rock, a few types of zoanthid corals, button polyps and a hammer coral.

About a month ago we added a fish-- a sixline wrasse-- to eat these obnoxious flatworms that were all over the glass. The LFS reccomended him. He did a very good job of it, because there's no flatworms left. We really like watching him swim and are quite attached to the little guy.

Today I did a water change (5 gallons) with premixed, aged and heated RO distilled saltwater. We purchase it from the LFS which is close to our house. When I came home this afternoon, I noticed that the wrasse has a singel white spot on his caudal peduncle. I'm kind of flipping out... he's been fine for 30 days, so why is this showing up now? Could it be marine ich, or am I overreacting? I did read the sticky here about ich, and looked at some photos, but it's hard to tell. It's just the one spot, not many.

I would greatly appreciate any thoughts or suggestions. He would be tough to catch, but I think I could get him out with a soda bottle trap if I had to.

[Reefing Madness]

To soon to tell. And if you've had him for over a month, I doubt its Ich. Probably hit himself on a rock. But, don't freak him out, the less stress on him the better, if he has early signs. Need more than just one spot to make a good call. Leave him alone and watch.

[leebca]

I agree with a wait and see approach. What is the fish eating now that there is no more flatworms for it to eat?

[Hypancistrus]

We have now been feeding him a variety of Omega One flake foods and frozen brine shrimp. Is that okay?

We'd like to eventually add more fish to the tank, but since it's young we're trying to move slowly. The white dot appears to be gone today. Could it have been a small bubble, I wonder? It did look a lot like the microbubbles I saw coming out by the filter.

[Reefing Madness]

We have now been feeding him a variety of Omega One flake foods and frozen brine shrimp. Is that okay?

We'd like to eventually add more fish to the tank, but since it's young we're trying to move slowly. The white dot appears to be gone today. Could it have been a small bubble, I wonder? It did look a lot like the microbubbles I saw coming out by the filter.

Might have been a microbubble. Might want to throw in some Mysis Shrimp, very good stuff. I would say you can add more fish if you'd like, your system has been running sound for 8 months, your safe.

[leebca]

Brine shrimp is too low in nutrition to be a regular food. Flakes are near the lower end of the 'good foods list.' Please get more into better foods. It'll take some reading -- just take your time and read.

Fish Health through Proper Nutrition
For information regarding pellet, flake, and disc foods, check under the heading of Flake, Pellet, Stick, and Disk Foods in the above linked post.

Especially under very stressful times like this, you want to include vitamin and fat supplements (also covered in the above linked post).

[Hypancistrus]

I've fed mysis shrimp in the past, to larger predatory freshwater fish. I will have to check those out.

Thanks for the link.