Blue Tang with ICH - Please Help

R

ReefingintheUSA

New member
Okay, I went through 2 blue tangs , small ones - 3" max
They both got ich. I tried to QT. I tried even letting the LFS hold for 6 weeks in a QT tank to let mine cycle.

The little tangs both died. I gave up on them and have kept other fish alive successfully since then.

Now my friend just got his first blue tang. I warned of ich.... I'm even wonder if it's the store as we both got them from same store... ??

Anyway what's the best way to help him. He's in a 29 gallon with
1 cleaner shrimp
1 mandarin

Do you rec a fresh water bath and if so, what's the best approach. Friend has no QT tank set up,
Fish has ICH for 2 days that we could tell.

Any help ASAP is appreciated.... my tangs died with 3-4 days of noticing it. :fish2:
 
I don't recommend a freshwater bath. Read this:

Eveything that you need to know about ich

And this:
The best way to treat ich

Without a QT, your options are very limited, and none of them are good ones. Your best bet is to try garlic and do whatever you can to keep the fish eating. Use live foods if you can, or whatever else stimulates their appetite.

You really ought to invest in a QT. I recommend a 20L. It's a good compromise between swimming room and low volume so as to use a minimal amount of meds (when necessary). If you can't afford that, by a 10g. They're cheap.

Buy a small hang-on power filter, a heater and throw in lots of hiding places and things to break up the sight lines. I prefer plastic plants and logs but you can get by with PVC pipe pieces. You don't have to get a light. Use the room lights. Cover over 3 sides of the tank so that the fish feels enclosed and doesn't see movement.

Good luck.
 
Your friend should not be keeping a blue tang in a 29 gallon tank in the first place. Or the Mandarin for that matter. The Tang will stress and die Ich or not and the Mandarin will likely starve. But on to your question.. Really if he's not going to setup a QT your going to have to try some garlic laced food and hope like heck it lives.. Personally I think without QT and Copper or Hypo its not going to make it. FW dips won't help. I've heard success stories with Kick Ich but IMO its snake oil.
 
Some of those links above are not working for me.... I am looking through the forums though too.

SO, friend is trying garlic soaked food yesterday and today going forward. I am emailing him the links that I have found as well. Maybe the LFS will help him out too, as far as a QT tank...

I personally think the fish has little chance... and from what I read keeping the mandarin in there will ensure that ich lives on to welcome any new fish
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15265360#post15265360 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rkelman
Your friend should not be keeping a blue tang in a 29 gallon tank in the first place. Or the Mandarin for that matter. The Tang will stress and die Ich or not and the Mandarin will likely starve.
Click to expand...

Took the words right out of my mouth,:( Already said same thing, but he insists he found a guy who kept a mandarin in a 8 gal alive.

I told him to not get blue tangs til he gets a 50 gal.... yet has to have "dory" fish for lil girl. I also saw he has two perc's in there , before noticing ich had brought them home. They are doing okay.... but not good environment.

He is growing his own copepods to help with the live food supply for mandarin - I hope that works!
 
I don't think Mandarins are generally capable of getting ich or even keeping it alive in a tank. Unless something happens that their slime coat is compromised. A 50g tank is still way too small. It needs to be 90g at least. A Blue Tang gets 12" long. Now if he's culturing his own pods he may have a chance with the Mandarin. It sounds to me like with his current decisions he's headed for a complete wipeout. Which is what typically happens when people refuse to act responsibly in this hobby. I hope I'm wrong. Good luck with him :)
 
Well, I forwarded him the link to 'all about ich' from the forums and I'll post an update if anything changes.

i read with their slime coat they don't get infected with it but is possible to keep it alive and breeding
 
To keep it alive it needs a host. Since the Ich can't get through the slime coat it can't eat. No food no life.
 
Some fish like Mandarin’s are considered highly resistant to ich â€"œ probably because of the thick mucus lining. Being less susceptible to ich does not necessarily make them immune from ich … Mandarins as examples are less likely to be infected â€"œ but they can be infected and have been known to die from ich. Experts believe that fish that have been exposed to ich can develop some level of immunity to fend off future attacks.

this is a partial sentence from the following link..so I do not think that is 100% the case..

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/ich.html
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15265694#post15265694 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefingintheUSA
Some of those links above are not working for me....
Click to expand...

If the links don't work, type "ATJ ich" into a search engine. You want "ATJ's Marine Aquarium site". The second link is to hyposalinity, which you can click to while in ATJ's site.

I echo the other's sentiments: a 29 gallon is too small for a blue tang or a mandarin. The tang should really have a 4 ft long tank or bigger, and mandarins typically need a 75 gallon tank with lots of pods (usually from lots of live rock). A smaller tank won't provide it with enough pods for food.
 
I hate when people say dont so this or dont do that. A friend of mine kept a mandarin in a 15 gallon tank for 3 years until he upgraded his tank. He didnt grow pods either. He had tons. You can keep a mandarin in ANY size tank and dont let other people tell u otherwise. Yes they are suppose to eat pods and usually pods dont have enough time in a 15 gallon to reproduce fast enough. Alot of people have mandarins on other foods besides just pods. As for the blue tang. He can keep it in a 29 gallon for a while. He said he was buying juts babies 3". Unless he feeds it like a horse then he can keep it in there for atleast a year
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15273842#post15273842 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Xler8n
I hate when people say dont so this or dont do that. A friend of mine kept a mandarin in a 15 gallon tank for 3 years until he upgraded his tank. He didnt grow pods either. He had tons. You can keep a mandarin in ANY size tank and dont let other people tell u otherwise. Yes they are suppose to eat pods and usually pods dont have enough time in a 15 gallon to reproduce fast enough. Alot of people have mandarins on other foods besides just pods. As for the blue tang. He can keep it in a 29 gallon for a while. He said he was buying juts babies 3". Unless he feeds it like a horse then he can keep it in there for atleast a year
Click to expand...

A person can do anything they want when keeping pets..but that is equivalent to a person living in a closet..they can survive..but not thrive..big difference.
 
"He's using Garlic to soak food in and got some kick ich"

<Cringe> :)

Hopefully he fights it off. What makes me cringe is people will chalk it up to garlic and kick ich when he may have beaten it himself..
 
You know I didn't try the garlic soak method. All I did was overfeed my two Blue Hippo Tangs, and they kicked it. They had taken a few weeks to completely recover, but the ICH is not on the fish anymore. Not one speck of that dreadful disease is on either of the fish.
What I had fed them was Julian's purple and green seaweed everyday. Also fed them some prime reef pellets dipped in marine plankton from the little pump bottle. The prime reef pellet with the marine plankton was given every other day. I also fed my corals Bioplankton.
It also helped that I was dosing vodka and had a powerful skimmer. Performed a 10% water change every weekend. Now these two tangs are nice and plump, with good appetites.
I feel it's a miracle, because I've had an ICH outbreak 5 years ago in a different tank, and lost two tangs, Sohal tang and blue hippo tang.
 
update on fish with ich.

the blue tang has survived.

he kept in the same tank, as he had no QT

soaked food in garlic to start and then used kick ich. took a few weeks, but now ich is all gone and the tang is happy.
 
Until the next time it gets stress and Ich breaks out again and wipes him out. What worries me here is that people will see this as a success. Its not. The ich is still there.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15498409#post15498409 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by rkelman
Until the next time it gets stress and Ich breaks out again and wipes him out. What worries me here is that people will see this as a success. Its not. The ich is still there.
Click to expand...

agreed and with that many fish in so small of a tank, it will get stressede very easily.
 
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