Blue Tang with Ich?!?! PLEASE HELP!!!

[antony1103]

My Tang is starting to get little white dots on his skin. Is it Ich. If it is I wanted to know if a cleaner shrimp can get reid of it. I don't want to endanger the Tang's life with a copper solution. Can someone verify if it is Ich and if my treatment will work?

[Black Phantom]

I hope your not thinking of putting copper in your main tank cause if you do you will kill all your inverts. If your tang is healthy chances are he can fight off a couple if cysts but if they start to increase then go to a hospital tank and use hyposalinity to get rid of the ich. Just reduce the salt slowly so you dont send him into shock

[antony1103]

No. I never intended to use copper, even just for the tang in a hospital tank. I heard cleaner shrimp can help get rid of the ich. I want to know if it would help the tang. Je is generally healthy, but has been going through some stress lately.

[tangerine]

what cause the stress? as black phantom stated if yr tang is healthy and feeding well i wud let it be.maybe supplement food soaked with garlic juice.understand it helps.

[Black Phantom]

Chances are the cleaner shrimp wont do the job. A cleaner wrasse will eat ich but will then die as he has nothing left to feed on. There is another type of wrasse that will eat ich cysts and other foods as well, I just cant remember the name. I'll look it up tomorrow in my fish book and let you know.

[Costazul]

If the fish is eating, I would try to find the best variety of foods, then alternating adds a couple of drop of garlic extract or vitamins on every feeding time. The immune system will get rid of the parasite alone. Not everybody have 100% successes, but always it works for me.

[tangerine]

black phantom.
cud u be refering to a neon goby?

[NanoCube-boy]

Where can you get them Garlic Extract at?

[TangmanBC]

AS I tried to advise earler :Prevention is also the cure feed lots of seaweed ,Use garlic extract,vitamin C,Also you could try a grounding probe (as stray voltage is known to cause ich) but if things get worse I would try MELAFIX It is reef safe and has nNO COPPER IN IT !!!!

[TangmanBC]

Garlic Extreme is made by KENT and should be avaible at any LFS

[NanoCube-boy]

I see, so garlic extract has vitamin C and can boost imune system right?

[Frankysreef]

mine starts to get it sometimes when the water is dirty, then I change it, and it goes away.

But Feed Feed Feed! It goes away naturally if the fish is healthy

[NanoCube-boy]

What, it just disapeared like that?

[FlipFlops24/7]

my blue hippo tang gets ich right around this time of year, for the past 2 years now. I just feed him alot, make sure my water quality is pristine, and I only have my lights on for 8-9 hours for about a week. He eventually gets better because his immune system is good and adapting.

If he has ich, theres a huge chance it will always be in your tank until you quarentine all of the fish and get rid of it for good! Just because the spots go away doesnt mean ich is gone :-)

[FlipFlops24/7]

oops double post. Darn firefox browser does that sometimes :-(

[Black Phantom]

I'm back home so I was able to reference my marine book.
Tangerine is right that the Neon Gogi will eats ich cysts and the other one is the Sharknose Gobi.
Both are very suitable for a reef system and will eat a variety of foods as well as ich.
This information comes from the Marine Fishes book by Scott W. Michael
Hope this helps:)

[Black Phantom]

OOOOOOps, I meant Neon Gobi:o

[NanoCube-boy]

What do you mean the Neon Goby eat the Ich?

[antony1103]

I have been using Garlic Extreme for a few days now. It seems to be working.

[tangerine]

NanoCube-boy,

the neon goby performs pretty much the same thing the cleaner wrasse does but takes also flakes and pellets unlike the wrasse which wud die once it runs out of parasite.

[NICKLER]

If you do a freshwater dip this will remove the ick the water needs to be the same temp. Also olny for a few seconds Good Luck.

[NanoCube-boy]

I see...

[FlipFlops24/7]

Originally posted by NICKLER
If you do a freshwater dip this will remove the ick the water needs to be the same temp. Also olny for a few seconds Good Luck.

Freshwater dip? Im pretty sure I read that this is definately something NOT to do when trying to get rid of ich. I've never heard of it working. Im sure it will kill ich, because it will kill your fish too!

I dunno, I could be wrong. There are better ways to get rid of ich(QT all fish for 6 weeks and treat QT tank).

[DLS]

FW dips stress fish. But, they can also make the parasites that are attaching to the fish drop off. parasites that have already burrowed into the fish stay comfy and warm where they are though. basically, I wouldn't do a FW dip unless I was sure the fish could take it. I also wouldn't use a FW dip as my only form of treatment - temporary relief at best. Your best bet is hyposalinity 1.09 for 6 weeks.

[NanoCube-boy]

I woudn't do FW dip either, that will do "put in shock" as Debaser
said. I think if you do put FW it will shock the fish into stress an cause more problem...

[antony1103]

A cleaner shimp has seemed to get it all off. I left it in the main tank because a guy at a LFS told me he will not pass the ich.

[NanoCube-boy]

There you go! Shrimp clean fish right? Think about Finding Nemo when the fish getting clean out... Pretty cool... I think the shrimp can clean the ich of and I doubt shrimp can get sick... I doubt.

[antony1103]

My cleaner shrimp I got seems to be helping.

[Black Phantom]

Go to the August and October 2003 issues of Reefkeeping. There is an excellant article on ich.

[NanoCube-boy]

ICH ICH ICH I feel ichy...

[Jonviviano]

But honestly what are the chances of the blue tang letting a cleaner near him, all my fish avoid shrimp

[NanoCube-boy]

haha rare...