Questions about black ich (turbellaria)

[FOX]

Robert,

I had a yellow tang go through a small bought with black ich several years ago. The fish fought it off without any treatment, but if I remember correctly, black ich is a tang specific disease. That would be why your other fish are not affected. That's about all I can remember about it. I'm sure someone else can help more with treatment, etc.

FOX

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[Brooke1]

If the spots are raised when looking at him from the side its probably black "ich". My yellow has gone through this as well. The cleaner shrimp have always been good to have around..they cleaned him up good. A good diet packed with vitamins, and he should do fine with no treatment.

Brooke

[Heinrich]

Best in tank treatment has been some anti parasitic flakefood, cleaner shrimp and food with Immuneboost by Acquamarine. Often brought on by some stressor. Did you get your tank temp under controll? I just wrote you an e-mail.
Black Ich is mostly found on Tangs, butt I've seen it on angels, clownfish, gobies and blennies. Easily seen on Tangs and they're most succeptible to it. Don't know why.
93! Heinrich

[Goby Fiend]

I have a little Tomato clown which came down with many black spots a week ago. He is acting normally otherwise and is still eating. Any suggestions?

[RobertK]

Thanks for the tips. Got the temp under control. I have been adding some new corals recently, don't know how stressful that is for the fish though. I've got some Acquamarine Immune Boost, so I'll start adding some of that in with the food. What is the antiparasitic flake food you're talking about? Does anyone know if turbellaria goes through a life cycle like cryptocaryon does? I know that often a fish with crypto will lose its spots, only to see them come back with a vengeance in a week or two. I wonder if turbellaria does the same?
Thanks,
Robert

[RobertK]

Hi there,

I'm not sure, but I think my yellow tang has black ich (turbellaria). For the last two weeks I've noticed some very tiny (well under 1 mm) round black dots around its scalpel and tail. Last week there were several dozen including some around the base of the dorsal and anal fins, but now there's just a few. The fish does not seem ill at all in any other way, nor do any of its tankmates (ocellaris clown, argi angel, bicolor blenny in a 60 gal reef tank). I've only seen turbellaria once before on some yellow tangs in a LFS, and I seem to recall them as slightly oval or oblong black dots rather than the tiny round pinpoint black dots I'm seeing. Anyone have any experience with black ich?

Thanks,
Robert

[RobertK]

Thanks, Henry. Yes, that does help. Since it is the secondary infection that is most harmful and since the fish has only a few spots I think it sounds safe to just watch it a while. If the spots come back I'll probably be back asking for advice on how to catch it. http://216.79.36.30/ubb/frown.gif I tried making a fish trap last week but it was a joke, the tang wouldn't go near it. Blenny cleaned up, though.
RK

[RobertK]

oops

[This message has been edited by RobertK (edited 10-12-1999).]

[Sloeber]

hi robert

i'm looking in the "disease in marine aquarium fish" book by gerald bassleer. he claims that turbellarian will be fatal unless treated. it is not turbellarian that causes the demise, rather the secondary infections that set in from the stress. he notes that either A)one 10 to 15 minute FW bath daily for five consecutives days, or B)1mg/l or 1 ppm trichlorfon on three consecutive days, or C) 2 g/100 l picric acid for one hour, have all been used successfully. he does not state the lifecylce of turbellarian. he does, however, state that the trichlorfon can be fatal to some fish e.g., sharks and catfish, and is fatal to all inverts. removal by activated carbon and WC's is necessary. sorry, i have no personal experience with the disease.

HTH

henry

[FOX]

Robert,

If you end up needing to catch it, let me know. I have a method that works very well for tangs.

FOX

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[Larry M]

Fox--What's your method? I have a tang that I may have to catch in the future.


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Larry M

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[FOX]

Larry,

Have you seen the fish traps they sell at most lfs? If not, it's basically an acrylic tube about 4-5" in diameter and about 10" long. It has a trap door on one end and a little compartment for food with small holes, so that the food slowly drifts out on inside, on the other end. In this case you don't need the food compartment. The trap door has fishing line attached to it that you run out of the tank to operate the trap door. What I do is take a small rock and rubberband Seaweed Selects, nori, etc. to it. I have caught a chevron tang, hippo tang, purple tang, 3 stripe damsel, flame angel, foxface and dragon wrasse with this method. With the dragon wrasse, I just had to put a bunch of tine rock, snail shells and a few handfulls of sand in it. He had to rearrange them eventually. The tangs I all caught within 5 minutes. They can't resist the dried algae. One thing to beware of though. The trap doesn't hold water, so you need a container of some sort that you can immediately poor the fish into and some fish do get quite freaked out when they realise they're trapped, but nothing worse then when they get caught by a net or anything else.

FOX

P.S. If you spend enough money at a particular lfs, like I do, they will usually loan you a trap, so you don't have to spend the money on one.
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[This message has been edited by FOX (edited 10-13-1999).]

[Larry M]

Good idea. I might try building something like that. I already have acrylic tube for a smaller diameter trap that would work on dwarf angels, etc. and smaller fish. One good use for those old SeaClones. http://216.79.36.30/ubb/wink.gif

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[RobertK]

I tried making a similar trap out of an acrylic overflow box which I wasn't using, I made a trap door for it and put some food in. I could have easily caught my blenny, but the tang is kind of a spaz and won't eat when I'm near the tank. He hides behind a rock til I step away. Anyway I had the trap in there for a few days with a long string and everything but he wouldn't go near it. The black spots came back yesterday and I wound up tearing apart my reef to get him. Actually it wasn't as bad as I thought, but I still haven't put it all back together again. Funny, the rocks won't fit together the same way as before, so I'm remodeling now.
RK

[Larry M]

Sorry, just testing.