Impossible Ich

[reefer75g]

Hey guys,

I've never had an account on here before, I've just browsed as a guest when I've had questions, etc. Now I'm desperate and I'm about burnt out with this hobby. I have 5 fish in a 75 gallon tank. I recently purchased a Kole tang and I put it through a three week quarantine where I observed it for signs of ich and made sure it was feeding. When no signs were observed I placed it into my reef tank and within a week all of my fish had ich. So at that point it was time for 10 weeks of fallow tank with an equal length of quarantine. In that time I administered 4 weeks of cupramine and kept it at appropriate levels. Just two weeks ago the 10 weeks ended and I was relieved to finally put all of my fish back into the display tank. This morning that kole tang once again showed two cysts on its top tip of his fin.
I am totally frustrated because there shouldn't be any ich and am afraid I'll have to repeat ANOTHER 10 weeks of treatment. If anyone has any alternate suggestions I am totally open and desperate for an alternative solution.

Some ideas I've had:
-Just move the kole tang and treat in hopes that the other fish have strong immune systems and it just showed signs, indicating a very small infestation
-Move my corals and medicate my dt (not a good idea at all. Just born out of frustration)

Thanks for your help guys.

 

[snorvich]

Read tank transfer.

 

[Deinonych]

Can you post pictures of the Kole? Cysts at the tips of the dorsal fin may not be ich necessarily.

 

[ThRoewer]

The tank is too small for a tang. It will always be stressed out and prone to any disease or parasite that comes along.

My suggestion would be to get rid of the tang.

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[reefer75g]

I have attached pictures, but the cyst at the very top of the fin is gone. It could just be my light, but right now he just seems discolored. I'm worried that they were cysts and now the ich is reproducing.

 

[snorvich]

Please read this.

 

[Deinonych]

I don't see anything unusual in the pictures.

 

[ThRoewer]

I don't see anything unusual in the pictures.

What about the malnourished tang?

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[Deinonych]

What about the malnourished tang?

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It's a bit skinny, but not terribly so. I don't see any evidence of disease otherwise.

 

[gavinbree]

You could be over reacting, the white spot could be anything, but I guess you have reason to be worried.
Although I don't think your tank is too small at its current size I would probably agree later down the road.

Doesn't look malnourished to me either personally.

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[ThRoewer]

On the phone screen it looked skinnier than on the computer. Still, 75 gallon for a tang is pushing it.

 

[SaltyDoug]

75 gallons is within both live aquaria and reefcentrals own tang tank size guide, for a kole

 

[reefer75g]

In reference to the malnourished comment - he is eating algae like crazy and I supplement that with New Life Spectrum Pellets and Hikari Marine S. He also snacks on the meaty foods I feed as well.

In reference to the tank size - I checked with multiple places including LiveAquaria and as it was already pointed out the minimum tank size is around 70-75 gallons. I plan to upgrade down the road so a larger tank size is hopefully in his future.

Thanks for all the support and input guys, I am going to keep an eye on him obviously. If he does show more symptoms, I'm assuming it probably wouldn't be enough to just QT him, I would need to QT the entire tank again

 

[Deinonych]

75g is fine for a Kole. They are slow growing and spend most of their time picking at algae on the rocks.