Damn! possible ich :(

[scarface70706]

so i got my little 1 1/2'' blue tang in my tank yesterday and noticed since this morning its scraping on rock. i notice a small spot of white on on side of his body. its just in one spot but not very large. i looked up what ich looks like and online it looks like some one salted their fish. mine doesnt look like that at all. but im guessing this is ich. ugh great! so i do not have a QT tank. what would be the best way to fix this problem. i dont want my other fishes to die. :( i just started my tank

[Thisseemsfishy]

Tangs are notorious for showing signs of ich due to stress. I would watch what additives I put in bc they can have nasty side effects later. I believe hyposalinty is a good treatment http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/hyposalinity/tp/hyposalinityhub.htm or if you have somewhere you could take the fish for holding and healing while your tank cycles out the parasites, this usually takes 6 - 8 weeks. Hope this helps

[DRSHARE]

I remember when I picked up my first tang, the guy in the LFS couldn't stress enough how sensitive they are to stress, ich etc...

[Curious George]

If you don't plan on keeping a reef with inverts, you can treat the DT directly with ich. This is the worst case scenerio under your circumstances. Cupramine is a good medication for ich. It is not hard on the bio filter and easier on the fish that other copper based meds. If you use copper, just make sure to test for it and follow COMPLETELY through with the duration of time recommended to treat. Usually 30 days. Do not use tap water conditioners with this medication.

Good luck and lesson learned is to QT all fish in a separate tank so you don't have to go through this again.

read this http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1992196

[scarface70706]

thanks guys for all the help. i called the fish store and ripped them a new one for selling my gf a (Strong, Healthy) fish. They lied strait to her face. i was recommended from different store that ich attack works the best for reef tanks. we will have to see i guess. i have no where to put the fish so ima fight this war as hard as i can without disturbing too much of the tanks water parameters.

[jcw]

thanks guys for all the help. i called the fish store and ripped them a new one for selling my gf a (Strong, Healthy) fish. They lied strait to her face.

won't be the first or last. It's just the way things work. You'll soon realize this.

[sporto0]

There is no product that's "reef safe" that will eradicate Saltwater Ich, I would be very careful dosing your reef, unless it is not that important to you. I wish you the best of luck though & maybe this will work for you, keep us posted because you will be a pioneer in the hobby if it's successful.

[Cloudburst2000]

Personally, I would start up a quaratine tank. It's imperative should your fish become ill, but you should always quarantine everything before adding them to the tank. And it is entirely possible that the fish never showed signs of ich at the store. You need to move ALL of your fish to quarantine. Treat them there as the treatments will kill inverts. You will need to leave the tank fallow (fishless) for six weeks to ensure all the ich cysts have on the rocks, etc have died away. If you don't have a quarantine, see if any local reefers have a quarantine they would be willing to let you use.

[scarface70706]

^^^ thanks guys for all the support. as of right now i do not know personally a fellow reefer around here :( and setting up a quarantine tank for myself isnt possible due to the lack of space in my house. so far my blue tang is eating like a champ and swimming pretty strong. the ich attack product says its reef safe so we will have to see. i dont have any reef in there at the moment but will in the near future. i plan on doing a few water changes to get some fresh new salt water in the system before adding reef. all the other fish seam to be fine for now but time will only tell. the small white speck is reducing and the tang is not scratching as much as it use to. actually has stopped 80% of the time scratching itself since i started dosing this product. i will keep you guys posted about this issue and i hope everything goes as planed.

Oh also for the LFS that sold us the fish; i talked to the guy that sold my gf the fish and he said "oh yea sorry i forgot to tell you these blue tangs all have ich." ugh what a douch. i bit the bullet and asked to talk to his manager to address this problem and when the manager heard about this he put me on hold... he then said the guy told my girl that it was infected and i was like im pretty sure he just told me over the phone that he made a mistake by not telling her before buying. once again put back on hold..... guy confesses and now i get to talk to the store owner tomorrow about this ridiculous worker of his and hopefully resolve this issue. i dont wish anyone to get fired but i do hope he gets reassigned to the cashier and no where near the fish. i know this fish store is great from past experiences but this one bad apple might be the end of my business with these guys. i was going to buy my AI LEDs from them but now i will be taking my $$$ some where else. sorry guys but if your willing to sell a $35 - $50 fish and ruin future business for LEDs that are worth a couple thousand dollars so be it . i have no problem giving my money to your competitors and yelping this store.

[snorvich]

Hmmm, your LFS sold you a Hepatus tang for a small tank? Oh, and by the way, the fish was infected with ich? And you think you have a good LFS? Get a quarantine tank, do it right and I hope you do better next time. Do some reading here and learn to prevent problems rather than creating ones that are not going to be solvable. I know you think I am being hard on you, and to some degree that is correct. Prevent problems, don 't create them and expect to react to them in a satisfactory manner.

[scarface70706]

^ agree no hard feelings at all. but if you read carefully i stated i do not have room in my house for a qt tank. some of us dont have the luxury of large homes. im sure all of us make mistakes which makes us who we are today. [profanity]

[aleonn]

That LFS is horrible! I'd buy from another LFS or online!

[scarface70706]

yea i know it sucks. never had any issues with them till now. possibly new staff since i heard they where hiring. im over it and like i said i dont have a problem taking my money somewhere else. i like vivid aquarium online so i think i will stick with them.

[Mandragen]

how do you not have space for a QT tank? a 10g tank is how big? we are not talking about setting up a whole system. You need salt water, which you have, a small heater for like $10, some sort of water movement for oxygen exchange, and small sponge filter....

[jcw]

how do you not have space for a QT tank? a 10g tank is how big? we are not talking about setting up a whole system. You need salt water, which you have, a small heater for like $10, some sort of water movement for oxygen exchange, and small sponge filter....

+1

And putting all the blame on the LFS for your lack of research just doesn't sit right with me. No fish store, not even Divers Den, can guarantee the fish they sell you doesn't have any disease.

just saying.

[droberts]

If you own or plan on buying tangs you should also buy a cleaner wrass or a cleaner shrimp as most tangs are ich magnets. I have tryed useing the ich meds and they have never been a long term cure they usualy never even worked for the money i spent i could have bought a natural cure shrimp or wrass

[scarface70706]

the fact of the matter the fish already had ich. my gf was trying to be nice and go out and surprise me and buy a fish. the fact that they knew these fish where sick and tell her afterwards over the phone they "forgot"to inform her which is not professional at all. i have done a lot of research and yes there are plenty of new subjects to learn in this hobby just like everyone else on here. and once again I DO NOT have room for a qt from 10 gallons to 40 gallons there is no possible way. i live in a very small old house fully stocked with furniture. thats like me asking you why dont you install another toilet in your bathroom. i understand a qt would be great and thank you for pointing me in that direction but i dont have the luxury to have a second tank of any size in my house. if its bugging you that much come over build an extension to my house for another bedroom and ill set up a qt tank.

[scarface70706]

If you own or plan on buying tangs you should also buy a cleaner wrass or a cleaner shrimp as most tangs are ich magnets. I have tryed useing the ich meds and they have never been a long term cure they usualy never even worked for the money i spent i could have bought a natural cure shrimp or wrass
ok ill def try that as well. i do have a cleaner shrimp and i have seen him hop on the tang and clean him up. so far as of right now the white speck has faded away and the tang isnt scratching any more so i hope this is coming to an end. im looking into a wrass down the road but for now ill wait it out and see if this ich attach and the cleaner shrimp work. so far so good. ill keep you guys updated.

[Mandragen]

If you own or plan on buying tangs you should also buy a cleaner wrass or a cleaner shrimp as most tangs are ich magnets. I have tryed useing the ich meds and they have never been a long term cure they usualy never even worked for the money i spent i could have bought a natural cure shrimp or wrass

The only proven crypto medications/treatments are copper and hypo for the fish, and leaving the main system fallow for 8+ weeks. The white spots you see on the fish are areas of the surface which have been burrowed by the crypto, but they are well under the surface. Cleaner shrimp and wrasse can not irradicate crypto, this is a myth. If the system is not left without any fish for an extended period of time it will have crypto.

[Mandragen]

and once again I DO NOT have room for a qt from 10 gallons to 40 gallons there is no possible way. i live in a very small old house fully stocked with furniture. thats like me asking you why dont you install another toilet in your bathroom. i understand a qt would be great and thank you for pointing me in that direction but i dont have the luxury to have a second tank of any size in my house. if its bugging you that much come over build an extension to my house for another bedroom and ill set up a qt tank.

:headwallblue:

[Mandragen]

ok ill def try that as well. i do have a cleaner shrimp and i have seen him hop on the tang and clean him up. so far as of right now the white speck has faded away and the tang isnt scratching any more so i hope this is coming to an end. im looking into a wrass down the road but for now ill wait it out and see if this ich attach and the cleaner shrimp work. so far so good. ill keep you guys updated.

the white spot and irritation will go away with or without the shrimp, as long as the stressors are removed. Crypto will transfer to the next stage in the life cycle and fall off into the substrate, it will lay there as a cyst and then hatch into crazy numbers and come back stronger than it is now. As long as you have host in the tank (any type of fish), you will have "ich"...

[Ponytrix]

the white spot and irritation will go away with or without the shrimp, as long as the stressors are removed. Crypto will transfer to the next stage in the life cycle and fall off into the substrate, it will lay there as a cyst and then hatch into crazy numbers and come back stronger than it is now. As long as you have host in the tank (any type of fish), you will have "ich"...

so i'm also noticing ich forming on my coral beauty, i'm setting up a biocube as a treatment tank right now. but it literally just got rodi water dumped in it tonight, if i change water daily can i move the fish to that tank and start treating copper? i have inverts and JUST BOUGHT MY FIRST ZOA YESTERDAY, i thought having my 3 fish in my dt for 1 month plus i would be safe from ich :(

my main question is, yeah the fish have to be pulled for 6-8 weeks but can my zoa stay? i obviously can't dose it in the biocube and cant do hyposalinity....if i understand what i read in the sticky the zoa and my inverts can stay in the tank and i can keep acting as normal...just the fish need to go into the biocube...right?

[yubunski]

so i'm also noticing ich forming on my coral beauty, i'm setting up a biocube as a treatment tank right now. but it literally just got rodi water dumped in it tonight, if i change water daily can i move the fish to that tank and start treating copper? i have inverts and JUST BOUGHT MY FIRST ZOA YESTERDAY, i thought having my 3 fish in my dt for 1 month plus i would be safe from ich :(

my main question is, yeah the fish have to be pulled for 6-8 weeks but can my zoa stay? i obviously can't dose it in the biocube and cant do hyposalinity....if i understand what i read in the sticky the zoa and my inverts can stay in the tank and i can keep acting as normal...just the fish need to go into the biocube...right?

Get all the fish in the treatment tank and run hypo in that tank for 8 weeks. For the DT, as long as there is no fish for about 8 weeks, there won't be a host for the ich and it'll die out. There is a good sticky in the fish disease forum for the treatment of ich.

[Ponytrix]

Get all the fish in the treatment tank and run hypo in that tank for 8 weeks. For the DT, as long as there is no fish for about 8 weeks, there won't be a host for the ich and it'll die out. There is a good sticky in the fish disease forum for the treatment of ich.

excellent i'm almost ready to do that, set up the biocube hqi today but ironically they don't come with a heater and my house is actually cold enough that the stock MH doesn't overheat the tank *after 5 hours with top glass on it still read 73.8*.

i'm afraid i may have made a mistake setting up my biocube today though. can i use substrate in my tank if i'm going to treat for ich?? i can pull it if i have to, but would prefer to have some in there :mad:

i'm scared to do hypo treatment as i'm routinely gone 10 hrs a day or more for work and concerned as from what i read in the sticky you have to monitor/test several times a day??

[droberts]

The only proven crypto medications/treatments are copper and hypo for the fish, and leaving the main system fallow for 8+ weeks. The white spots you see on the fish are areas of the surface which have been burrowed by the crypto, but they are well under the surface. Cleaner shrimp and wrasse can not irradicate crypto, this is a myth. If the system is not left without any fish for an extended period of time it will have crypto.

I still have the same tangs and havent had ich since adding the cleaner shrimp and wrass in over a year. The natural ich treatment has been working for me

[droberts]

I did have to do a fresh water dip to cure black ich as it is an actual worm. And was easy to spot on a yellow tang it dident get on my sailfin or blue tang

[yubunski]

excellent i'm almost ready to do that, set up the biocube hqi today but ironically they don't come with a heater and my house is actually cold enough that the stock MH doesn't overheat the tank *after 5 hours with top glass on it still read 73.8*.

i'm afraid i may have made a mistake setting up my biocube today though. can i use substrate in my tank if i'm going to treat for ich?? i can pull it if i have to, but would prefer to have some in there :mad:

i'm scared to do hypo treatment as i'm routinely gone 10 hrs a day or more for work and concerned as from what i read in the sticky you have to monitor/test several times a day??

How deep is your substrate? As long as it's not too deep where your substrate has a spot has higher salinity where the ich can survive I don't see any problem. Keep in mind that you won't have the luxury of live rock/sand for filtration so frequent water change is need to keep the water clean. Bare bottom just seems easier from a maintenance standpoint.

As to the hypo treatment. Start it on a weekend and monitor it for a day to see what the evaporation rate is and make sure the salinity doesn't creep up above the 1.008 (well technically it's 1.009 but have some room for error) and top off when you get home. I think check the salinity once a day when everything is set up is good enough.

[snorvich]

^ agree no hard feelings at all. but if you read carefully i stated i do not have room in my house for a qt tank. some of us dont have the luxury of large homes. im sure all of us make mistakes which makes us who we are today. So please don't act like your s**t don't stink.

Do not use profanity even if disquised. No, QT, then don 't buy fish that are known to be problematical.

[snorvich]

If you own or plan on buying tangs you should also buy a cleaner wrass or a cleaner shrimp as most tangs are ich magnets. I have tryed useing the ich meds and they have never been a long term cure they usualy never even worked for the money i spent i could have bought a natural cure shrimp or wrass

Unfortunately cleaner wrasses and cleaner shrimp have no effect on ich. That is a total myth. Read the sticky on cryptocaryon irritans at the top of this forum.

[Mandragen]

Get all the fish in the treatment tank and run hypo in that tank for 8 weeks. For the DT, as long as there is no fish for about 8 weeks, there won't be a host for the ich and it'll die out. There is a good sticky in the fish disease forum for the treatment of ich.

+1, crypto must have a fish host to complete it's life cycle, so without that host it will eventually die off. 8 weeks is the min I would do, but read the sticky, there have been cases where it will remain a cyst for longer. I've gone through fallow treatment twice in my DT because I've made all the mistakes there are as well. But, it works!

[Mandragen]

I still have the same tangs and havent had ich since adding the cleaner shrimp and wrass in over a year. The natural ich treatment has been working for me

No doubt that the shrimp and wrasse help clean the tangs of certain things, but it's not crypto they are cleaning. You can have ich in the tank and not see the signs visually. Usually it feeds on the host in the gills where you can't see it, the only time you see the white spots on the exterior are when it's a bad case, usually in times of stress. Odds are that if you were to add a new member to the tank, or those fish were to stress for some reason you would see an outbreak come out of no where.

[droberts]

you could always run a uv sterilizer also. and i have seen my tangs open up there gills to allow the cleaner shrimp to get in there to clean there gills

[Tin_Whistler]

I DO NOT have room for a qt from 10 gallons to 40 gallons there is no possible way. i live in a very small old house fully stocked with furniture. thats like me asking you why dont you install another toilet in your bathroom. i understand a qt would be great and thank you for pointing me in that direction but i dont have the luxury to have a second tank of any size in my house. if its bugging you that much come over build an extension to my house for another bedroom and ill set up a qt tank.I question the idea of having a display tank in the first place if you don't have room for even a 10 gallon hospital/quarantine tank. A ten gallon tank takes up a ridiculously small footprint, if I didn't have that space I wouldn't keep a main tank at all. Fish occasionally need treatment due to disease, infections, and parasites, if you can't provide that then why are you keeping them?

I wouldn't let my dog deal with fleas on his own, just as I wouldn't expect fish to just live with ich.

[droberts]

i have been in this hobby for almost 3 years now and i still have yet to set up a quarantine tank. i have plenty of room for one and have read all the reasons why i should have one but since i don't regularly add new fish its not an issue for me at all. the only secret to my success is watching fish for a few days before i buy them and only buying from quality fish stores. a quarantine tank is definitely a good idea but personally i don't like any chemical treatment for fish as usually for me when i finally catch the fish in my 125 to treat it usually it is to far gone for any treatment to work and the fish dies anyhow.

[scarface70706]

im over trying to convince you guys about the space in my house. its like talking to a wall. im sure im not the only one w/o a QT.

[snorvich]

im over trying to convince you guys about the space in my house. its like talking to a wall. im sure im not the only one w/o a QT.

Unfortunately, those who do not quarantine are much more likely to drop out of this hobby. We believe you! It is simply difficult for us knowing what is coming down the line for you. Good luck.

[Ponytrix]

How deep is your substrate? As long as it's not too deep where your substrate has a spot has higher salinity where the ich can survive I don't see any problem. Keep in mind that you won't have the luxury of live rock/sand for filtration so frequent water change is need to keep the water clean. Bare bottom just seems easier from a maintenance standpoint.

As to the hypo treatment. Start it on a weekend and monitor it for a day to see what the evaporation rate is and make sure the salinity doesn't creep up above the 1.008 (well technically it's 1.009 but have some room for error) and top off when you get home. I think check the salinity once a day when everything is set up is good enough.

the substrate is only like an inch, i'm running my rodi unit and getting about 20-25 gallons ready, got my heater and the temp is up to 80 and i'll keep 10-15 gallons of rodi ready at all times. I have a refractometer so i'll be keeping it at 11 ppt, it's 31 right now same as my DT. as soon as i get off work tomorrow i plan on transferring and then doing a decrease of salinity from 31 to 11 over 24+ hours. picked up some seachem buffer after work today at the lfs to keep the ph good. man did that start an argument with the kid there. he acted like he had never heard of running hypo and tried to tell me that my tank will have ich forever.

what kills me about this whole thing is the one fish that is showing signs of disease is acting healthier than when i brought him home! he even had a hole in his tail when i got him and it's healed. eating more now than ever...can't believe he's sick.:strange:

question: how fast CAN I drop the salinity in the QT? Biocube HQI 29, thought i'd do 4 gallon changes every hour/90 min till i got to 11 ppt.

[Uncle Salty 05]

Unfortunately, those who do not quarantine are much more likely to drop out of this hobby. We believe you! It is simply difficult for us knowing what is coming down the line for you. Good luck.

I used to qurantine, but got tired of watching fish perish.
Since I stopped QT and started using 5 minute freshwater baths along with rock solid tank parameters and a well balanced diet I have not lost a fish to ich since.

[liverup]

im over trying to convince you guys about the space in my house. its like talking to a wall. im sure im not the only one w/o a QT.

If your mom won't let you put another tank in her house, just put it at your g/f's house.

[Uncle Salty 05]

If your mom won't let you put another tank in her house, just put it at your g/f's house.

Well, that was childish, un-called for and of no help to anyone.
Thanks for your input (or lack thereof).

[Ponytrix]

question: how fast CAN I drop the salinity in the QT? Biocube HQI 29, thought i'd do 4 gallon changes every hour/90 min till i got to 11 ppt.

question 2: i bought some poly fil to make carbon "pouches" like it says in the sticky, and having trouble figuring out how that will work without spilling carbon everywhere....couldn't i use a media sock and just freshwater wash it daily?:idea: