blue hippo help!!

[ferchap1820]

ok so I want to add a blue hippo to my 135gal mix tank. I only have 1 yellow tang and two clowns with coral lps and sps. but I know they are ich magnets I really want to have one in my tank but I want to do it the right way so I don't loose my fish or I have a better chance of keeping him alive!!!!!
plus I don't want to bring ich to my other fish. I was reading about them and they said the biggest problem with them is ich. and I have to QT them first. but im not sure how to do it. I have two LFS around here and they say different ways to do it. they both said to get a 10 gal tank as a hospital tank and QT tank they also said that a cleaner shrimp will be great with my tangs. So I bought a cleaner shrimp and 10 gal set up for this. Now any body have any ideas on whats the best way to do this, the right way.

 

[Lsufiregal]

I set up my QT, cycled it, bought my blue tang and put her in. Here are some pics...

Day 1:

Two days later.... Massive ich infection

Treated with hyposalinity and after 4 weeks she was ich free.

Slowly raised salinity and watched her for three weeks, No Ich! Then I put her on display with two clowns, a damsel, and a scopas tang.

Good luck! Be ready to treat ich and you will do fine.

 

[Lsufiregal]

Ps- this was my first fish purchase. My tank came to me with some established residents.

 

[cy93]

hi ferchap,

Honestly, I don't think you should have gotten the cleaner shrimp because if your tang does develop ich in quarantine, you will need to treat the tank or do a hypo salinity procedure and both are fatal to your shrimp.

It would be great if you could return the shrimp to your LFS or ask them to keep it for you till your hippo tang finishes undergoing quarantine. If they accept; heres what you should do:

1. 1st week -
Slowly reduce the level of salinity to 1.018. Maintain this level for the next three weeks. This will help the fish develop a healthy slime coat.

2. 2nd and 3rd week -
Look for signs of ich/ other disease. If your fish keeps scratching against a surface / breathes rapidly for no apparent reason, something is not right.

3. 4th week -
If all goes well and no signs of disease can be spotted you can start increasing your salinity slowly over the course of the week (if possible try to aim for not more than .001 increase per day till the salinity of 1.024 or the salinity that is maintained in your display is reached.)

 

[reef80]

Both mine got ick in qt and now they immune to it...hate to say it but...I am managing ick in my display with no problems...now velvet n flukes...another story...she's prettie BTW...I like the hypo method and slowly raising it up...good luck
.

 

[knight2255]

I like to prophylactically treat with this

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Chloroquine...t=LH_DefaultDomain_0&var=&hash=item35c391fdf6

one and done treatment that kills everything bad plus you can use prime to control ammonia

I would also get this to get him eating good

http://www.ebay.com/itm/HBH-Super-S...568?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item518df35198

My powder blue that just finished up qt wouldn't touch anything until I put these in, he along with my yellow tang gobble this stuff up, you have to cut the pellets up tho to make smaller

I have a cleaner shrimp and both neon blue and neon yellow cleaner gobies in my 135g tank. The powder blue uses the gobies to clean him, I've never seen him go over to the cleaner shrimp.

 

[Mrscribbled]

The question is- have you in the past or currently see signs of ich on your current fish?


Posted from ReefCentral.com App for Android

 

[Mrscribbled]

Read through the disease treatment forum. Lots of info there.


Posted from ReefCentral.com App for Android

 

[ferchap1820]

Thanks to every one for the help. It's very helpful now i never had any ich in my DT so far.
About my cleaner shrimp he is in my DT. I called my LFS they don't take them back. I guess he will be fine in the tank. Since I'm not treating the display right?
Now my LFS told me to put 2" PVC in my QT tank for them to hide will that work?

 

[rlpardue]

Wow LSUGal, when I saw the second picture I thought the fish was dead! How big of a QT do you need for a small blue tang?

 

[MrTuskfish]

Both mine got ick in qt and now they immune to it...hate to say it but...I am managing ick in my display with no problems...now velvet n flukes...another story...she's prettie BTW...I like the hypo method and slowly raising it up...good luck
.

Any immunity is temporary and probably just limited to one strain of ich. Your tank has ich and it will return in big numbers sooner or later.

 

[MrTuskfish]

Cleaner shrimp don't help with ich, the parasite is buried too deep under the skin.

I'm no longer a fan of hypo, I used to be though. It just isn't working many times, according the the number of failures that show up on the disease forum. It is very easy to screw up; very important for a newcomer. Lots of user error and possibly some immunity developing with the ich parasite. I did use it successfully for quite a while , though. Read the sticky on tank transfer in the disease forum. Very simple and effective and perfect when you only have one fish to treat.