Its a 75 gallon. 1 yellow tang, 1 blue hippo, 2 mandarins, 2 maroon clowns. all the fish are small except the tangs. yellow is 3-31/2 inches hippo is 2-21/2 inches, Water parameters are all excellent and I have an rodi for water changes. I got the fish from someone on brs. Can ich be brought on by stress? I am confused as to what my next move is...I don't have a qt tank or extra heaters skimmers etc so I am in panic mode right now.
Please don't panic.
Assuming it is ick you're dealing with, it doesn't typically kill fast if at all. If it's brook, you'd probably already have dead fish.
Here's the cheat sheet 101 on ick;
O Ick can be eradicated/wiped out/eliminated.
-To eradicate ick, you need to remove ALL the fish from the display, keep the display 100% fishless for at least 8 weeks, and meanwhile treat all the fish with EITHER copper or true hyposalinity treatment (1.009 max SG for 6 weeks).
O Ick can be managed such that it is present in the system but the fish suffer little to none as the infection is kept very low.
-fish do have/develop some immunity and can resist ick to some degree.
-Stress affects this ability to resist ick.
-ick can be dormant or nearly dormant such that you can go a long time and not see any spots on the fish, until there is an increase in stress on the fish. (then one day some stressor happens and the fish seem to get sick out of thin air.)
-UV, cleaners, feeding garlic, "reef safe" meds, and every other miracle cure out there - all may help to manage ick, but none eliminates it.
-being well fed, undercrowded, having plentyful swimming space relative to the size of the fish, lack of external stimuli (like the reefkeeper walking past the tank all the time or the room lights being randomly turned on and off), good water parameters exct.... All help to reduce stress and aid the fish in fighting off any infection.
*Ick can be "managed" or "eradicated" and both are valid and often successful approaches. It's a lot of work and potential serious stress on the fish to go for "eradication". "Managment" works, but you always have the risk of a flare up to worry about. Sometimes fish die because people go for managment but it doesn't work out. Often fish die because people rush into attempts to eradicate and stress the fish to death in the effort to help them.
** the most important thing to do now is to not overreact. Read up (use the search function on this forum to start. I know I personally have covered all of this countless times).
Good luck, no go do some googling
