Please help purple tang

[The Saltman]

HI guys,

I woke up today to find my purple tang had a very dusty kind of powdery look to him. There was also some small white specs on his body. He was scratching against some rock. After a lot of cleanings from the cleaner shrimp it seems he looks a lot better now. He is still eating very well. It seems to me like hes fighting off some ick. Could it be something else? What can I do to help him?

 

[n.son29]

sounds like ich to me. I would try to get it out of the display tank and treat it.

 

[baobao]

if you take the approach sugggested by n.son29, you will have to move the tang to quarantine for at least 4-6 weeks and in the meantime leave your system fallow. i instead suggest you treat with a quinine based medication (it is not going to affect your live rock/invertebrates) and will treat either velvet/ich. [Crypto-Pro http://www.nationalfishpharm.com/products.html#C]

 

[baobao]

Also, there are some strains of ich in the industry now that are resilient to both copper and hypo, so i suggest you consider quinine as alternative. http://www.nationalfishpharm.com/fish_diseases/marine_ich.html