Help!! sick fish

My emperor angel and 2 other fish have been sick in the morning it appears like they have ich but the spots are gone by noon and the fins look all ratty looking. The emperor angel fish looks blotchy and the color is fading.

 

Do they move? Could be a parasite.

 

It looks like it could be ich to me. The spots will fall off, but usually after a couple days I think. The spots are only part of the ich life cycle, and even if they go away for a while, they will probably come back in greater numbers as the cycle continues. I haven't dealt with ich for some years now, so my best recommendation is to read up and try to sift out the good from bad information. Also there should be some others on GIRS that can give some good suggestions. It might help to know if anything has changed in your tank? Any new fish added or any changes that may have caused some stress? Do you normally quarantine or have a quarantine setup available? Do you have corals and inverts in your tank or plan to someday?

 

Do you have cleaner shrimp (or fish) they may be trying to fight the ick for you too and that is why it looks like it comes and goes.

 

If it is ick even after it falls off the fish it will still live in the tank. You can try and rid by QT fish our do what I am currently doing and build up your fishes immune system to help fight it off. The later will put your fish at risk in the future but I decided not to QT my entire tank at this time. Been doing this last few weeks. Only blue tang still shows signs now but I did just stress him out with a tank teardown. He was spot free before. I soak frozen food in garlic juice.