juvenile hippo tang with spots, ich?

[scarletknight06]

I got this very small hippo tand a little over a month ago. He ate well in the store and seemed healthy. He still eats very well and seems very healthy. The only odd thing is he is a little shy/skittish.

He has these white spots on him that are there some days, and some days not. They move around his body. He does flash/itch against things sometime. It doesnt look like ich I've seen, but I've personally never dealth with it before so I could be tottaly wrong.

Attached is a video, I couldnt get a bigger picture, and he wouldnt let me get any closer to him with the camera. You can see the spots on his forehead and 2 on the top edge of his body.

QT is unfortunately not an option, please adivse on what I should do.

 

[arizona tech]

it is ick, some parasite is bothering him, hypo the main tank, if you have a refractormetor, take out the lr

 

[scarletknight06]

hypo is not an option
should i try a formalin dip?

 

[arizona tech]

if you do a formula dip you will kill the ick on the tang but it does little to treat the aquarium you have to assume that when you return the hippo he will get ick again, if hypo is not a option try kick ick or stop parisite,

 

[ufchristyb]

Is this your only fish? If so, and you can net him for a formalin dip, why not just pull him out, buy a small 20gallon and run him through a QT process - either hypo or copper. If you let your display sit fallow (without fish), you should take care of any ick in your tank.

Also, are you sure its ick? Sometimes fish can get airbubbles or sand stuck to them for a while. Generally an ick spot will be noticeable in the same place for several days. It erupts from the fish, and then stays as a visible small salt-like spot for several days before detaching.

--Christy

 

[scarletknight06]

unfortunately there is no room for a seperate tank for a hypo/copper treatment in our apartment.

the only other fish at the moment is a GSM that lives in a very large RBTA, she shows know signs of ich.

I have read that feeding heavily with food soaked in garlic can work well, what do you guys think about that?

are kick ich and stop parasite invert/reef safe?

 

[arizona tech]

that is what i would do soak food in garlic and use a reef safe med i can say a reef safe med is 50/50 going to work but you basically have no options, good luck, and kick ick and stop parisite are reef safe

 

[hansonfam]

IMO kick ich is a waste of money. It may have worked for others but i tried 2 rounds and it didn't work. There are other things out there as we'll that you could try. I have heard that seachem has a medication that you add to the food that may help. Just go to there site and check out medications. Not sure on the name but i am sure you can find something. Hippo's are bad for ich so hopefully you can get it through it.

Good luck
Craig

 

[arizona tech]

i believe it is metronidazole , i dont know much about it

 

[ufchristyb]

Metranidizole is an antibiotic used in humans and animals for intestinal infections. It also goes by the name flagyl. I have used it for internal parasites (mix it in with food) in anthias and it seemed to work well. I don't know if it would work for ich, but it claims to do so on the label - although a lot of things claim to get rid of ich, so I am always skeptical.

However, I don't know if feeding fish metranidizole would work for a skin ailment. Seems that it would make more sense to add it to their water directly, since the ich parasite is largely burrowed in the fishes skin and gills. If you are only feeding it to them, and it is passing thru their digestive tract, how is it supposed to help?

Seachem sells met in a powder form in a small vial, and another company sells tablets that can be crushed that goes by the name of Fish Zole - which comes in larger quantities if need be.

--Christy

 

[boostd2valve]

try feeding it garlic soaked food, I have a smaller hippo and ich seems to come and go, and it seemed to keep it under control..ive also heard that a uv light will help but ive not tried that yet...

 

[Triggerfish]

Re: juvenile hippo tang with spots, ich?

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8018834#post8018834 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by scarletknight06
hippo tand has these white spots on him
what I should do.

basically have 2 options.

remove fish treat with copper leave tank fallow for 8 weeks.
or
attempt to keep the parasite population low by any or all of the following:
very low fish stock
frequent water changes
quarantine anything new
UV
keep fish as healthy as possible while infested with parasite

 

[scarletknight06]

can anyone recommend a good/reliable brand of UV

 

[flameangel88]

I was in the same situation as you 2 weeks ago and I started using Stop Parasite last Monday and it must be administered twice a day for 5 days. As of last Saturday I finished dosing and all the fishes seems to be doing well and their belly have a big bulge. I've also been feeding heavily with Selcon and Vitachem in frozen food and nori.

So far the medication doesn't seem to bother the shrooms, polyp, tube & cup coral rocks that are in the tank.

I like the idea of feeding medication to the fishes rather than adding that much chemical into the tank and that may be another option for you and I think you need to that for 2-3 weeks. If I remember the idea with medicating food is that fish digest food and bacteria bites into fish then medication is transfered into bacteria and therefore kills the bacteria. Don't hold me to this as I was doing speed reading 2 weeks ago to combat the ich situation.

So far Stop Parasite has worked but I don't know if it will come back this week, next week or the week after since I finished dosing. Wish there's a way to test for ich (I'm sure someone will come out with a test kit in the future and hopefully sooner than later). According to Stop Parasite it can also be used as preventive maintenance by dosing twice a week but I'll hold back just to made sure there's no problem to the habitants for a couple of more weeks before considering maintenance route. Good luck with your battle against ich!

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewI...dproduct=CM1133

 

[Aimforever]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8022267#post8022267 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ufchristyb
Metranidizole is an antibiotic used in humans and animals for intestinal infections. It also goes by the name flagyl.

However, I don't know if feeding fish metranidizole would work for a skin ailment. Seems that it would make more sense to add it to their water directly, since the ich parasite is largely burrowed in the fishes skin and gills. If you are only feeding it to them, and it is passing thru their digestive tract, how is it supposed to help?

I know this thread is very old, but I was doing some research and came across it and needed to point something out here. I would never add an antibiotic directly to the water of a display tank. This is a perfect way to completely crash the system and kill everything. Antibiotics are somewhat indiscriminent, and dosing them to the display will kill the beneficial (and necessary) bacteria that carry out the nitrogen cycle in your tank. Kill them and your levels will spike very quickly, perpetuating a system crash. Bad idea.

Secondly, the vast majority of antibiotics are able to easily enter the bloodstream and circulate systemically (which includes the skin). Most bacterial skin infections in humans are treated with an oral antibiotic, though skin creams with antibiotics are also used in conjunction sometimes. My point is, it makes complete sense that Metranidizole is able to work against ich when delivered orally to the fish.

Now if it actually works as an effective treatment for ich is a completely different topic that I have no data to support or refute. I just wanted to clear up those two tidbits of misinformation.