white spot on chromis

[Mihai]

One of my chromis developed a white spot today (or last night). In case you wonder, yes I put a new mandarin fish in the tank 5 days ago after only two days of quarantine (was not eating at all despite large populations of pods). The mandarin is fine, all others fish are fine. The fish (chromis) doesn't seem to mind it at all: it ate a lot and it does not seem stressed.

I wonder if it's a bite from somebody (either a fish or something else): recently I had somebody ate a bit of a fin on the above mentioned mandarin fish:

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=65244

It also seems to be a bit bigger than just a missing scale.

Any idea?
Thanks,
Mihai

 

[Jolieve]

Watch for more to appear, looks like ich to me... but I'm not 100% on that.

J.

 

[Mihai]

Watch for more to appear, looks like ich to me... but I'm not 100% on that.

It crossed my mind too, however:
1 - the mandarin doesn't have any
2 - it's rather big (about 3mm), while I heard that ich is small (<1mm).
3 - it's not very 3D, but rather flat, I heard that ich makes "bumps" on the fish.

M.

 

[Mihai]

For posterity : it healed in 2-3 days. It was no ich (no other sign in the tank either before or after this).

M.

 

[ChrisRD]

Looks like fungus to me, not ich.

 

[Anonymous]

Agreed, that is not C. irritans. (ich)

 

[Anonymous]

IMO looks like it could be an injury. It should heal in a few days to a week with excellent water quality.

 

[Mihai]

Thanks, whatever it was it's gone and the fish is in good shape now.
M.

 

[Anonymous]

Don't look like ich to me...to big and not pimple like enough. Injury that's healing. It'll pass.


FYI, you're whole tank can get nuked by ich and that mandarin will be fine. They have some slime coating that prevents ich. That isn't to say that it couldn't have brought the buggers into your tank...just that it won't get so bad on a mandarin that it'll kill it.