Purple Tang broke out w/Ich after introduction from stress?

[llebcire]

I just purchased a Purple Tang that had been qt'd before purchase. Coloration is unbelievable, healthy, eating, etc. - all good.

Acclimated and introduced to my tank...was immediately bullied by my Powder Blue. I'm not concerned about them eventually getting along as I've always read that Tangs with the same body shape will fight unless the tank is huge - the PBT harassed Chromis when I introduced them as well.

Been two days and the PBT has been leaving the Purple alone since yesterday.

Problem is ich (or something) on the Puple.

The night I introduced him he went from clean to covered (head to tail) in 2 hours. He's still covered and doesn't want to eat.

This afternoon I will be setting up a quarantine tank for the Purple.

Questions:

Should I initially move just the Purple until he starts to look healthy again then move the rest of the fish into the qt? If he has ich - then eventually all the fish will get it. I'm afraid to move all of the fish before he starts eating for fear of a loss.

How should I treat? Freshwater dip and hypo? Copper? Both? I would assume with the hypo I'd start with the current 1.0264 and slowly drop it over a week or so?

Now that he's popped what appears to be ich, my thought is that I will need to get all of the fish into qt, treat them, and let my tank fallow for 8 weeks.

Total stock is PBT, Purple, False Perc (1), and 6 green chromis.

Thanks for the help and advice!

-Eric

 

[RBU1]

Well getting them all out to a treatment tank would be ideal. The problem is do you have a cycled media to use in a QT? The biggest concern I have in a treatment tank is the water quality. You don't want any ammonia or nitrite and you want to try and keep the water as good as possible. If you are setting up a tank from scratch you will have a cycle that could kill the fish anyway.

If you have the ability of a tank that will not get a cycle I would use Cuprmiane to treat versus hypo. Just my opinion so do what is best for you.

OH and I would leave your main tank fallow for 12 weeks.....
Never trust that fish have been thru a QT unless you do it yourself.

 

[llebcire]

Thanks for the quick response!

I'll be setting up a 20H with PVC elbows for hiding places. I am going to use 10g from my current tank & 10g of freshly mixed for the initial water and I have a H.O.T. 250 that I run carbon in on my tank that I will use for filtration on the qt, in theory there will be bacteria in the filter as I will not clean it b4 moving.

That should prevent any cycle/stress, and I am planning a 1g waterchange every 2 days.

I assume that I leave the temp in the qt normal? Do I crank the display to 82 deg once the fish are out or does it matter?

I've been running marine tanks for nearly 7 years and have never had marine ich before! This current tank has given me nothing but problems in the last year...and running without fish for 12 weeks should clear up any algae problems I have! :lolspin:

I am planning on moving just the Purple initially until he starts eating again. I feed Prime Reef & Formula Two soaked in Zoe along with garlic soaked Nori, may soak that in Zoe as well.

-Eric

 

[RBU1]

Sounds good just make sure you keep an eye on ammonia. My advice would be the cupramine added REAL slow....The directions on the bottle are 16 drips (1ml) per 10.5 gallons wait 48 hours then repeat. I would break the dosage up into 4 waiting 48 hours between each dose to make sure the fish are eating and taking the copper OK. I would also get all the fish out at the same time. My opinion is if you add them at the same time to a different environment it might be better then letting one establish itself then adding more.

I have read that changing the temp for marine ich does nothing. Better to leave your main tank run as normal without fish for 12 weeks...

 

[llebcire]

Is it possible that this could be "white spot" & not ich? Seems strange that it went from clean to completely covered in 2 hours & I am hesitant to treat with copper if reducing stress & a good diet will kick it naturally?

Obviously I don't want to wait and see with diet and lose the fish either!

-Eric

 

[RBU1]

Is it possible that this could be "white spot" & not ich? Seems strange that it went from clean to completely covered in 2 hours & I am hesitant to treat with copper if reducing stress & a good diet will kick it naturally?

Obviously I don't want to wait and see with diet and lose the fish either!

-Eric

Not sure what "white spot" is....I just thought that was slang for ich. IF this fish is covered with salt looking stuff odds are its ich. Being completely coverd in a matter of hours is not that off base.

 

[llebcire]

My advice would be the cupramine added REAL slow....The directions on the bottle are 16 drips (1ml) per 10.5 gallons wait 48 hours then repeat. I would break the dosage up into 4 waiting 48 hours between each dose to make sure the fish are eating and taking the copper OK. I would also get all the fish out at the same time.

Without doing alot of research on different treatments, is this the preferred ich treatment in this community? Better than Mardel products?

Thanks!

-Eric

 

[sfboarders]

There are only a couple that have known to work.

- Copper/Cupramine which RBU1 specializes in.
- Hyposalinity which I have had success with
- Tank transfer method

Also another method is with quinine sulphate which I have tried and have been successful with.

Each method has it's pros and cons.

 

[llebcire]

I'm having trouble finding the Seachem product locally - just the Mardel.

-Eric

 

[RBU1]

There are only a couple that have known to work.

- Copper/Cupramine which RBU1 specializes in.
- Hyposalinity which I have had success with
- Tank transfer method

Also another method is with quinine sulphate which I have tried and have been successful with.

Each method has it's pros and cons.

LOL Yeah I specialize in Cupramine.....That can be considered a bad thing....LOL

I would highly suggest you get your local store to get it for you or mail order it. Also get the Cuprisorb so you can remove it when neccesary...

Cupramine is a lot safer then most copper treatments.


The only thing I dont like about the chloriquine is that you can't test for it. So how do you know what range your at and need to be??? I was also told that it will destroy your biological filter.

 

[sfboarders]

The only thing I dont like about the chloriquine is that you can't test for it. So how do you know what range your at and need to be??? I was also told that it will destroy your biological filter.

True for both your comments. Lotta comments in that quinine sulphate post awhile back. It's basically taking your chance :hmm2: Like Russian roulette. :uzi: I had a well cycled medium. I cycled A LOT of filter pads for 1.5 months and spiked the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate to get good bacteria population. When I started dosing the ammonia was at 0 and my seachem ammonia alert never went to the next stage from safe. However, nitrite and nitrate spiked pretty high. I dosed with amquel+ every other day. WC every 3 days and redosed the amount of h20 removed.

I wanted to try something new besides PITA hypo. So I decided quinine because I didn't wanna contaminate gloves, net, powerheads with copper.

Like I mentioned to the original poster. Each treatment has it's pros and cons. hehe .

 

[wooden_reefer]

Thanks for the quick response!

I'll be setting up a 20H with PVC elbows for hiding places. I am going to use 10g from my current tank & 10g of freshly mixed for the initial water and I have a H.O.T. 250 that I run carbon in on my tank that I will use for filtration on the qt, in theory there will be bacteria in the filter as I will not clean it b4 moving.

That should prevent any cycle/stress, and I am planning a 1g waterchange every 2 days.


-Eric

You likely can never buy a fish that is rigorously QT'ed commercially.

The purpose of wc in DT and in QT are very different; in DT you remove mildly and subtly undesirable stuffs; in QT you remove ammonia, acutely toxic. The extent of meaningful WC are therefore very different. What good does it do to change just 20% of water in QT? 0.4 ppm ammonia is not sighnificantly less toxic than 0.5 ppm. Besides, decay of poops can cause rapid rise in ammonia. Wc in QT and WC in DT are two very different concepts. If you need to do WC in QT because you do not have (enough) nitrification activity, you likely will have to do massive WC in QT, 50% daily with diligent removal of uneaten food and poops may well be needed.

That is also why the medium in QT must be very well cycled in advance.

You can try robbing bacteria from the DT to be used in QT. You can run polyester floss in DT in a power filter or allow return water from DT to drip over it. You may be able to collect some bacteria this way.

This hobby is much about planning in advance. QTing and cycling the medium for QT in advance are just usual examples of planning ahead.

 

[llebcire]

Thanks for the help!

I didn't start the copper last night, but apparently it wouldn't have mattered as this morning he's on his side in the bottom of the qt.

BTW - I did a substantial 20g water change in my display using all of that water for the qt along with a powerfilter that had been running for a few weeks.

Must be all of the stress along with the ich...

-Eric