Blue Tang QT ich/velvet/brook what am i dealing with here ?

[4x4cubereefer]

So after talking with my partner about a reefer 750 XXL we have agreed in 12 months time we will buy one together .. having oversized all our new equipment on the 425 xl knowing we would want/need a 750/6 foot tank in 2 years or so we decided to pickup a small 2 inch blue tang & have my 425 with only 4 fish bioload wise .. maybe 3 small dispars later on but that is where id draw the line bioload wise as im not about overstocking but in saying that it is a 110.

so onto the blue tang.

have had him for 7 days now in QT @ 0.5 cupramine & have passed the first hurdle and fattened that stomach up with blue planet fluke & worm praziquantel for any potential internal parasites for 7 days alongside cupramine from the moment he was introduced ive got him eating pretty well on frozen mysis/formula 2 & nori .. knowing most blue tangs are shy & will hide a lot of the time and noticing/realising that can be there downfall during QT "Hiding & never eating" with a lot of reefers i decided to try something out/taking a risk and keep him out in the living room/high traffic area where he will get lots of attention & get used to us - it actually worked ! and he now has no issues whenever anyone is near his tank he will resume chomping his nori and swimming around happily .. he wouldnt eat nori at the start so i used GHA on a clip from my algae scrubber with nori to get him onto it then followed with frozen alongside daily dosing of vitamins into the water column.

when i chose him at the lfs his stomach wasnt sunken but had some slight indentation & his belly was slightly whiter then usual almost like dusting but no gold tinge so i assumed possibly early onset of velvet but more likely ich that hasnt progressed to the visual stage yet "spots" otherwise he looked good .. now after 7 days in QT he is starting to scratch "but still normal behaviour & swimming/eating happily" and lots of spots .. im getting slightly nervous thinking this could potentially be brook & i may need to commence formalin instead .. although it could just be ich and will drop in several days then endup dying in the water/copper .. what do you guys think i should do from this point on ? continue with copper ?
im thinking ill go 20 days in cupramine then clean the whole QT tank thoroughly with hot water/scrub it down then reintroduce & monitor for two weeks to be certain .. maybe im just overthinking it but i want to be sure i give this guy the best shot at a long life in our system without any diseases.

im pretty sure its ich but i just want to be certain its not brook with the white-ish stomach.

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[OurCoralReef]

Blue Tang QT ich/velvet/brook what am i dealing with here ?

Looks like ick to me
brook is (for the most part) a clownfish disease and i don't think its velvet because the skin would have a milky slime even stringy at times

I usually Try putting a neon goby in with it to help remove the parasites that and proper meds it should be ok

Make sure to give it some pipe joints to hide in they can really stress when not given a good place to hide

Seems like you are doing a pretty good job so far

 

[4x4cubereefer]

Looks like ick to me
brook is (for the most part) a clownfish disease and i don't think its velvet because the skin would have a milky slime even stringy at times

I usually Try putting a neon goby in with it to help remove the parasites that and proper meds it should be ok

Make sure to give it some pipe joints to hide in they can really stress when not given a good place to hide

Seems like you are doing a pretty good job so far

Neon goby .. check ! I'll remember that for the next tang once we have the 750 .. and yeah he has some pipe in there to hide whenever he likes .. but to be honest he seems to swim for ages around the tank/eat here and there then rest on top of return/repeat all day long only time I've seen him go into the pipe is like 10-11pm to sleep then I see him cruising around the next morning .. must say the white dusting on the stomach had me fairly concerned as I definitely don't want to lose him.

Hope all goes well from here on out .. fingers crossed !, In your experience do fish usually get a light dusting/white skin with ich ? Cheers mate.

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[OurCoralReef]

Neon goby .. check ! I'll remember that for the next tang once we have the 750 .. and yeah he has some pipe in there to hide whenever he likes .. but to be honest he seems to swim for ages around the tank/eat here and there then rest on top of return/repeat all day long only time I've seen him go into the pipe is like 10-11pm to sleep then I see him cruising around the next morning .. must say the white dusting on the stomach had me fairly concerned as I definitely don't want to lose him.

Hope all goes well from here on out .. fingers crossed !, In your experience do fish usually get a light dusting/white skin with ich ? Cheers mate.

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I keep a bunch of different "œcleaner" fish and inverts to help in the case of a breakout never hurts to have in qt and a Display

To be honest no they don't usually have that
I have seen blue hippos skin look reflective and look like it has a "œlight white dusting" but in reality its a reflection of its skin
Velvet is slimy so it would look like a film besides you would see the fish breathing hard etc seems like yours is doing well

I would also look into Lymphocystis as thats a extremely common disease in blue hippo tangs because they stress very easily
(treatment is do nothing unless it gets bad)

 

[lobelto13]

Have you tried to raise the copper? 0.5 is really on the low side??

 

[pfan151]

Could be ich but it may not be solely ich. A lot of the spots don’t appear round like they are with ich. Have you done a formalin bath or FW dip? Also, a cleaner goby will do nothing to help ich.

 

[4x4cubereefer]

Have you tried to raise the copper? 0.5 is really on the low side??

Definitely not going to raise the cupramine and its on the higher side at 0.5, according to seachem therapeutic levels are around 0.3-0.4 for cupramine with their reccomended level being 0.5 .. a lot of people run 0.3-0.4 with 0.5 being too high for there liking & 0.7 being the absolute max before becoming toxic to the fish.

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[4x4cubereefer]

was going to do a formalin bath today to be honest just to make sure .. but ill have to head down to lfs too pick some up .. but for the most part he seems to be doing good still and i dont want to stress unless its necessary so i might just hold off and see what happens.

Could be ich but it may not be solely ich. A lot of the spots don't appear round like they are with ich. Have you done a formalin bath or FW dip? Also, a cleaner goby will do nothing to help ich.

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[4x4cubereefer]

i have a tomini tang in my display that has some slight lympho at the moment which is slowly clearing up .. i thought that too .. but i didnt want to put it down to that aswell as the ich because what are the odds of getting two fish in a row that have lympho lol but i agree potentially could be that too.

the white dusting part is really whats throwing me as its not really something ive seen before with ich or on any tangs at the lfs so far

I keep a bunch of different "œcleaner" fish and inverts to help in the case of a breakout never hurts to have in qt and a Display

To be honest no they don't usually have that
I have seen blue hippos skin look reflective and look like it has a "œlight white dusting" but in reality its a reflection of its skin
Velvet is slimy so it would look like a film besides you would see the fish breathing hard etc seems like yours is doing well

I would also look into Lymphocystis as thats a extremely common disease in blue hippo tangs because they stress very easily
(treatment is do nothing unless it gets bad)

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[ca1ore]

Doesn't look like velvet or brook, but perhaps not solely ich either. These days I prefer CP for most skin parasites. Why the myth of cleaner as ich remedy persists I cannot fathom. The whitbspotsbare not ich, rather the skins reaction to the embedded parasite. The cleaner may well remove the white, but it does nothing to the actual parasite.

 

[OurCoralReef]

Doesn't look like velvet or brook, but perhaps not solely ich either. These days I prefer CP for most skin parasites. Why the myth of cleaner as ich remedy persists I cannot fathom. The whitbspotsbare not ich, rather the skins reaction to the embedded parasite. The cleaner may well remove the white, but it does nothing to the actual parasite.

Im a very big believer in natural remedies things that have been working in nature for thousands of years
The so called "œcleaners"
gives you more time to get rid of the parasites
It makes the fish more comfortable
It prevents the fish from scratching itself (flashing) causing a bacterial infection (which is my belief is what kills the fish not the parasite but the infection that comes after)
And can "œclean" skin parasites very affectively i have seen it first hand for many years

 

[4x4cubereefer]

Well said, i agree & prefer to do things as naturally as possible also while these things may or may not remove the parasite imo if it does or doesnt thats fine as copper will always do its job but in saying that theres no argument against the fact that taking these steps will aid the fish through a rough process & im all for that.

i prefer to run my reef naturally also using algae as a nutrient export along with water changes but over time i still ocassionally have to use either GFO or lanthanum chloride.

do i like it .. not really .. but it works & ive never seen any negative effects in past tanks/my current one.

Im a very big believer in natural remedies things that have been working in nature for thousands of years
The so called "œcleaners"
gives you more time to get rid of the parasites
It makes the fish more comfortable
It prevents the fish from scratching itself (flashing) causing a bacterial infection (which is my belief is what kills the fish not the parasite but the infection that comes after)
And can "œclean" skin parasites very affectively i have seen it first hand for many years

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[ca1ore]

What works in nature is dilution. The ocean is big enough that the vast majority of ich theronts never encounter a fish and perish. No such luck in our aquariums. I'm all for biological controls - dusky wrasse for flatworms and pyramid snails as example - but I have seen no evidence, nor have read any credible claims, that a cleaner wrasse will help to control ich. Correlation is not causation. I'd hate to see people encouraged to buy cleaners when the vast majority will not survive.

 

[OurCoralReef]

What works in nature is dilution. The ocean is big enough that the vast majority of ich theronts never encounter a fish and perish. No such luck in our aquariums. I'm all for biological controls - dusky wrasse for flatworms and pyramid snails as example - but I have seen no evidence, nor have read any credible claims, that a cleaner wrasse will help to control ich. Correlation is not causation. I'd hate to see people encouraged to buy cleaners when the vast majority will not survive.

If dilution was the way nature kept it in check why do so many fish come in sick i don't know if you have ever been to a "œwholesaler" in indonesia but you see the fish that come in and allot of them have parasites straight from the ocean

What happens in the ocean is there are many cleaners many different types and fish line up waiting to get cleaned or the cleaners travel with them cleaning the school and its a constant thing
Fish don't die from parasites its when the fish scratches itself to rid the parasite it gets a infection and that infection eats away at the fish killing it

All my cleaners survive i don't know what people are doing to kill them but the only time i lost a cleaner is when it jumped i have had cleaners for 5+ years and they keep my fish happy
They do get lazy sometimes because they are getting food but if a fish comes close to any of them they would start "œcleaning"

I have seen first hand that these "œcleaners" are being used to help alleviate the fish that go to them

 

[ca1ore]

Coming in with parasites and coming in 'sick' are not the same thing; most fish that get 'sick' do so once in the supply chain. Of course fish will come in with parasites, it's just a part of the way nature works. What is different is that the volume of the ocean means animals are more able to co-exist with parasites; as opposed to them being overwhelmed in a captive tank. I think adding a cleaner is poor advice - absent any actual credible data, we will have to agree to disagree on this.

 

[4x4cubereefer]

Coming in with parasites and coming in 'sick' are not the same thing; most fish that get 'sick' do so once in the supply chain. Of course fish will come in with parasites, it's just a part of the way nature works. What is different is that the volume of the ocean means animals are more able to co-exist with parasites; as opposed to them being overwhelmed in a captive tank. I think adding a cleaner is poor advice - absent any actual credible data, we will have to agree to disagree on this.

You both have very valid points .. fish will come in sick yes and going by the life cycle of these parasites & having all holding tanks linked its inevitable that 99% of fish will get infected .. yeah people buy clowns etc and its like thank god they dont have ich .. wrong ! there just a lot more hardier then others & dont show signs apart from some slightly elevated breathing which most newer hobbyist wouldn't even pick up on & then its laying dormant in there system till they treat & add a tang saying copper didnt work etc etc .. imo yes in the ocean theres a hell of a lot of water dont quote me on it but id say over 80% of the planet is water and yeah i agree that dilution is the solution but thats not to say fish dont ever get ich/parasites in the ocean & in saying that .. that is where cleaner wrasse/neon gobies/cleaner shrimp can potentially come in to play on the reefs .. they do play a role here wether thats significant/insignificant etc and that role is in aiding/soothing the fish with the parasites granted it doesnt cure the fish but we know it definitely provides relief otherwise why would the fish present themselves for cleaning ???? thats there role, and with dilution being the solution i definitely agree there but these inverts/fish are the middle man in reaching dilution .. he was never saying that it cures ich etc .. he was merely offering advice on something "on his own personal experience" that has aided in one way or another during the QT process wether they remove the parasite or not lets put that aside and focus on what they actually do in this situation as outlined above .. you are both right here just arguing a point from different angles/perspectives thats all.
Happy Reefing.

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[nereefpat]

Unfortunately, cleaner wrasses/gobies/shrimp can't get to the ich or velvet, since it is under the skin of the fish. Freshwater dips also don't work for the same reason.

 

[OurCoralReef]

Unfortunately, cleaner wrasses/gobies/shrimp can't get to the ich or velvet, since it is under the skin of the fish. Freshwater dips also don't work for the same reason.

Depending on what part of the lifecycle of the ich it would not eliminate the ich entirely and won't replace a qt
Ich can infect a entire aquarium with one drop of infected water

And they don't just alleviate ich they help with dead skin scales and more