Powder Blue Tang with ich

[Kiel'thalin]

I bought a 4 inch Powder Blue Tang over a month ago. Now the last three days he has come down with some nasty ich. He diet for the 1st month has been great. For the 1st week Ate Fresh Grape Caulerpa Algae/live brine, after that he has been eating nutrient enriched seaweeds, formula 2, and some formula 1. He feasts all day. I tried to introduce another fish, foxface, and he totally freaked. The next day he came down with ich pretty badly. This is the 3rd day, do I need to take him out for some hypo/copper treatment, or let him fight it out. Yesterday, I started to put Garlic Extreme with all his foods, and caught my cleaner shrimp going to town on him. I don't want to stress him anymore. The tank has a pair of Ocellaris Clowns and a Mandarin in it, they do not have ich. I do not have a quarintine tank setup. I just want to hear some options before I do anything else.

 

[Steven Pro]

Your best bet is to remove all the fish to quarantine and treat with a proven remedy such as copper, hyposalinity, or tank transfer.

 

[Kiel'thalin]

Yeah, I am removing him today, hopefully the move won't stress him anymore than he is already. I will let you know how the move turned out.

 

[n2prelude03]

powder blue is a very nice fish, good luck on your treatment, but i use no ick treatment and it work really well for me

 

[flameangel88]

Unless you remove all the fish otherwise you may still have eggs on the sand and after it hatch your other fish will get ich. I don't know about other folks that say Mandarin don't get ich because it has a very thick slime coating that ich don't attach to but couple of weeks ago when my tank got ich the Mandarin was the first fish to die. This could be an isolated coincidence but still it died during that period.

I've 130lb of LR in the tank and taking all the fishes out wasn't an option for me at that time and I used Chem Marin's Stop Parasite. The company claim it to be reef-safe and it need to be administered twice a day for five days. So far the last dose was 8/26 and all the fishes are doing well, shroom, polyp rocks and tube, cup and polyp corals are doing fine. At the same time of administering the medication I fed frozen food and nori soaked with Selcon & Vitachem and still doing so now and all the fishes are fat and always eager to eat.

HTH

 

[Kiel'thalin]

I couldn't get him out yesterday without taking a majority of the tank down, i.e. rockwork. The ich also spread to my other fish. One of my clowns, the small juvy died right in front of my eyes within hours, the ich was all around his gills when I inspected his death. This morning I was finally to get all my fish out due to they are so weak from the parasites they didn't even put up a fight. Now they are being delivered to the quarantine tank that my LFS has setup for me (stand-alone, not plumped together). This type of thing just want me to quit the sw game. I am pretty sure everyone got it from the my introduction of my last clown. This a 7 days later and a very sad day Any ideas on how to treat the reef tank now. Just give it a 4-6 sit with no fish?

 

[Kiel'thalin]

Just found out that the other clown died All I got now is the Tang and Mandarin.

 

[sshunter]

i would let the tank sit for 90 days with no fish

 

[ufchristyb]

You may want to read up on Brooklynella or Marine Velvet. The disease process you are describing and how quickly it occurred doesn't sound like ich - which usually does not kill a fish that rapidly. Based on the fact that you recently added a clown, Brook is a big suspect, although you could be dealing with a corresponding ich outbreak as well.

If you are dealing with velvet, you will need to treat with copper in the QT. If brook, then formalin baths are your best bet.

--Christy