What are the odds this tang will survive? Ich/Bacterial Infection

[DustinB]

So I picked up a yellow tang about 2 weeks ago from petco(I know, I know) and it has been in quarantine since. I noticed ich appearing after the first week so I began treating with ich attach to see if there was a chance it might be able to fight it off on it's own with the ich treatment.

Well I took a good look today and noticed it has gotten incredibly worse. The ich has disappeared, at least visibly from it's body, but now the fin tissue between the spines is eroding and the eyes are slightly cloudy. Apparently this is from a secondary bacterial infection. The mouth is also gaping and gills are flapping quickly. Will not eat.

I moved it tonight from the quarantine tank to a 5 gallon hospital tank, just the tang and a couple rocks to hide in. Set it up with water from my established tank. I dosed 9 drops of cupramine and a half a packet of maracyn 2 that I picked up today.

Is there a reasonable amount of time I could expect to see some results if this fish has a chance of making it? Is there really much of a chance? Anything else I can do? Going to pick up a copper test kit tomorrow so I can do 1-2 gallon water changes every 2 days and bring the copper levels back up. I'm just surprised how quick it went from looking better to a full on bacterial infection with fin erosion. Obviously I don't want the fish to die, but I'm sure I will be screwed by petco's policies if it does.

Any ideas/input would be great.

 

[Hdhuntr01]

You should lace some food in Garlic and get him to eat. That would be the best chance of surival while you treat him for Ich. As long as you can keep him eating you would be surprised how they can rebound from Ich.

Good Luck

 

[reefWW96]

your best bet is to try to get him to eat the dried nori, As it boosts the tangs' immune system incredibly.i normally feed nori every other day but a while ago my yellow tang got ich so i fed nori every day and i noticed a rapid decrease in the amount of ich, until it was gone. Hope this helps

 

[rrrrob]

have you checked the water quality to make sure there is no ammonia build-up or other water quality issues causing the fish to stress out and thus become vulmerable to disease? Whenever I have had a fish with ich, it was because of water issues and once corrected, the ich went away on its own without any harsh chemicals such as copper, which is what happens in nature...i have never had success treating fish with ammonia or any other treatment in such cases...it just made things go from bad to worse.

 

[rrrrob]

meant to say i have never had any luck treating fish with COPPER (not ammonia!)...