How Risky Are Powder Blue Tangs?

[MarineBradUK]

Hi guys

So I brought a powder blue tang home today and put him straight into my DT as I always have done due to not having a quarantine.

He's been swimming around great, grazing off of live rock and even eating already as I wanted to try him out with some Mysis.

I noticed this evening he's covered in white pimple like spots all over his body and fins - they weren't there in the shop or when I got him home.

Luckily I still have my old nano aquarium and set up an emergency quarantine - his spots already seem to be fewer and he's swimming around.

My key question is how risky are powder blues regarding ich? Is it something they are at high risk of? Can it be killed permanently in quarantine?

All advice welcome please!


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[Tripod1404]

PB tangs are probably one of the most ich prone fish. They are regarded as ich magnets. It is extremely high risk not to quarantine a PB.

It can be killed permanently in qt. But you would need to remove all the fish in your DT as well. They all have ich now. DT needs to be fishless for 72 days while you treat other fish in a separate qt tank.

Whether or not you can use you nano tank depends on how big is the tank, how big is the PB and how many other fish you have.

How big is your DT and how many other fish you have there?

 

[MarineBradUK]

PB tangs are probably one of the most ich prone fish. They are regarded as ich magnets. It is extremely high risk not to quarantine a PB.

It can be killed permanently in qt. But you would need to remove all the fish in your DT as well. They all have ich now. DT needs to be fishless for 72 days while you treat other fish in a separate qt tank.

Whether or not you can use you nano tank depends on how big is the tank, how big is the PB and how many other fish you have.

How big is your DT and how many other fish you have there?

The quarantine won't be big enough for all fish - I was reading this evening allegedly it can take best part of 3 days for ich to drop off causing risk to infect others - given he was in my DT for a few hours can it spread that fast?

Just been reading further and as silly as it sounds I'm not even 100% sure it is ich - can it be anything else these sudden white spots that flared up and already gone down?


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[Tripod1404]

The quarantine won’t be big enough for all fish - I was reading this evening allegedly it can take best part of 3 days for ich to drop off causing risk to infect others - given he was in my DT for a few hours can it spread that fast?

Just been reading further and as silly as it sounds I’m not even 100% sure it is ich - can it be anything else these sudden white spots that flared up and already gone down?


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Ich symptoms flare up when fish is stressed. That is the most likely reason why they suddenly got visible after you put the fish in. It got stressed during the move and spots appeared. There are also some who says spots appear as ich parasites leave the fish. The spots are the bodies reaction, as parasites pierce the skin and fall( similar to red spots on us after a mosquito bite).

And about the question if it can spread that fast. Yes it can. Is is generally assumed ich feed on fish for 3-7 days, that is correct. But you cant know when the fish got infected. There are parasites that infected that fish 7 days ago, as well as parasites infected it, say 8, hours ago. The parasites that infected it <3 days ago probably didn't drop yet, but parasites that were on the fish for longer probably dropped.

Generally, water from an infected tank mixing in with a "uninfected" tank is assumed to be enough to contaminate it (because it also contains parasites in their free swimming stage). In your case, there is both water from another tank and a potential host fish as well.

 

[Joe0813]

see if you can find a few 20 gallons off of craigslist or something

 

[MarineBradUK]

Ich symptoms flare up when fish is stressed. That is the most likely reason why they suddenly got visible after you put the fish in. It got stressed during the move and spots appeared. There are also some who says spots appear as ich parasites leave the fish. The spots are the bodies reaction, as parasites pierce the skin and fall( similar to red spots on us after a mosquito bite).

And about the question if it can spread that fast. Yes it can. Is is generally assumed ich feed on fish for 3-7 days, that is correct. But you cant know when the fish got infected. There are parasites that infected that fish 7 days ago, as well as parasites infected it, say 8, hours ago. The parasites that infected it <3 days ago probably didn't drop yet, but parasites that were on the fish for longer probably dropped.

Generally, water from an infected tank mixing in with a "uninfected" tank is assumed to be enough to contaminate it (because it also contains parasites in their free swimming stage). In your case, there is both water from another tank and a potential host fish as well.

I see thank you so much.

Am I right in saying there are no reef safe products/methods that can be used in my DT because of inverts?

Is white spot always deadly or can fish live in an environment where it's present? I've read it's always present it's just does a fish get stressed enough for it to become a problem if that makes sense?


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[Tripod1404]

I see thank you so much.

Am I right in saying there are no reef safe products/methods that can be used in my DT because of inverts?

Is white spot always deadly or can fish live in an environment where it’s present? I’ve read it’s always present it’s just does a fish get stressed enough for it to become a problem if that makes sense?


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Yes, there are no reef safe products. Anything that can exterminate ich will also exterminate the inverts.


Abouts its deadliness, below is something I wrote about it some time ago. Long story shot, if everything else is ideal, it should be not. But it takes a long time for a tank to reach stable ideal levels. In a young tank, most of the time it is deadly.

IMO ich is not capable of killing a fish that is otherwise healthy and is living under ideal conditions. However, I am very wary about making statements like these since these would still be case sensitive and people often prefer comforting examples over their hars reality. Everybody likes to think they are keeping their fish under ideal conditions. But not everybody is and "ideal" , to most parts, is a vague concept for an aquarium. But overall, I agree with your statement. Dangers of ich is sometimes overstated, there are pathogens that are almost 100% death sentence to all the fish within the tank, ich is not one of them.


That being said, not everybody has tank that are "ideal" accept having ich. There is so many unseen event happening in our tank that we cant see or control. There is a whole micro ecosystem of protozoans, bacteria, fungi algae, viruses... where each inhabitant have certain roles. Same way ich prey on fish, there are protozoan predators and pathogens that prey on ich. I think this is one of the reasons why people who have new tanks are more inclined to lose fish to ich while fish usually do not die of ich in mature systems.

For fish to die of ich, it needs to reach plague levels and "puncture" the host fish so much that it loses the ability to regulate water within its body or get secondary infections. In mature systems, ich simply cannot reach plague levels. When ichs number increase, numbers of its predators and pathogens also increase, keeping the numbers in check. On top of that, there is a barrage of filter feeds and sand grazers that can passively consume ich at different stages of its life cycle. Again these guys are only found in large numbers in mature tanks. When ich cannot reach plague levels, host fish has the chance to develop immunity against the infection. So fish become asymptomatic to ich.

Overall, does this mean ich is cured? Most likely not, it is most likely still within the system and is still infecting fish at a low level. Ich is also present in natural environments of all these fish we keep and they all most likely get infected with ich. But they dont die since it doesn't reach plague levels in a healthy ecosystem. Remember, ich is a parasite, if it kills all available hosts, it will die as well. Ina healthy ecosystem, parasites do not kill healthy individuals.

There is also some anecdotall evidence that it might eventually disappear due to extensive inbreeding if no new ich strains are added for a long period of time. But I dont think anyone made a conclusive study on this.
​

 

[MarineBradUK]

Yes, there are no reef safe products. Anything that can exterminate ich will also exterminate the inverts.


Abouts its deadliness, below is something I wrote about it some time ago. Long story shot, if everything else is ideal, it should be not. But it takes a long time for a tank to reach stable ideal levels.

IMO ich is not capable of killing a fish that is otherwise healthy and is living under ideal conditions. However, I am very wary about making statements like these since these would still be case sensitive and people often prefer comforting examples over their hars reality. Everybody likes to think they are keeping their fish under ideal conditions. But not everybody is and "ideal" , to most parts, is a vague concept for an aquarium. But overall, I agree with your statement. Dangers of ich is sometimes overstated, there are pathogens that are almost 100% death sentence to all the fish within the tank, ich is not one of them.


That being said, not everybody has tank that are "ideal" accept having ich. There is so many unseen event happening in our tank that we cant see or control. There is a whole micro ecosystem of protozoans, bacteria, fungi algae, viruses... where each inhabitant have certain roles. Same way ich prey on fish, there are protozoan predators and pathogens that prey on ich. I think this is one of the reasons why people who have new tanks are more inclined to lose fish to ich while fish usually do not die of ich in mature systems.

For fish to die of ich, it needs to reach plague levels and "puncture" the host fish so much that it loses the ability to regulate water within its body or get secondary infections. In mature systems, ich simply cannot reach plague levels. When ichs number increase, numbers of its predators and pathogens also increase, keeping the numbers in check. On top of that, there is a barrage of filter feeds and sand grazers that can passively consume ich at different stages of its life cycle. Again these guys are only found in large numbers in mature tanks. When ich cannot reach plague levels, host fish has the chance to develop immunity against the infection. So fish become asymptomatic to ich.

Overall, does this mean ich is cured? Most likely not, it is most likely still within the system and is still infecting fish at a low level. Ich is also present in natural environments of all these fish we keep and they all most likely get infected with ich. But they dont die since it doesn't reach plague levels in a healthy ecosystem. Remember, ich is a parasite, if it kills all available hosts, it will die as well. Ina healthy ecosystem, parasites do not kill healthy individuals.

There is also some anecdotall evidence that it might eventually disappear due to extensive inbreeding if no new ich strains are added for a long period of time. But I dont think anyone made a conclusive study on this.
​

What a great read thank you so much! My aquarium is just over 2 years old so hoping it's established enough but like you've commented it's something that will always be unknown.

I guess all I can do now is wait to see how the others are; thankfully I got him out into quarantine quick time and didn't dally around.

As you can tell I'm still learning in the hobby, the chap in the retailer said they are low risk or just as risky as any other fish for ich, well he's a liar clearly!


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