Now that my P650 is up and running and the clownfish has exited QT, I'd like to prepare QT for my yellow tang. I've read up on a lot of posts and as a result I'm a bit scared of using copper. Some tangs do fine, while others seem to perish. At this time, a TTM or Hybrid TTM seem safer.
- Background: he's the lone survivor of this situation here and came in via here. Looking back I'm embarrassed to even link these threats but ok. In short, the previous owner had an Ich outbreak. So chances are high there is still Ich in the tank. The nitrate values were off the charts. All fish in this tank had heavy breathing all the time. When the pH dropped too low for a while, they became vulnerable and died to something afterwards. Symptoms were heavy scratching against the rocks, loosing parts of their fins because of it and finally a very colorless look, damaged mucus layer, slime coming off and finally death for all except the yellow tang. At some point I'm sure I remember seeing stringy poop even on one of the fish that died.
- Current state of the tank: so we are months if not almost a year later now, everything is pretty stable. Nitrates are a thing of the past.
- Current health of the tang: pretty fat and healthy overall if you ask me. Except for one thing: his breathing remains heavy as always.
Now I'm no expert obviously, but after observing a lot more fish over the last year, at stores and my own fish. I'm pretty sure the tangs breathing can't be considered normal. Even though it has become the standard for him, I've seen other tangs with a lot slower breathing. If I compare the clownfish that came with the yellow tang, with the clownfish that is now in my P650, I can say this breathing is defenitly not normal. My current clownfish almost never opens his mouth, while the ones that came with the tang had a constant open mouth. Just to put the difference in perspective. This leads me to think these fish defenitly had/have some kind of parasite on their gils.
Back to the main topic. This is another reason I'm very afraid of using copper at this stage. Even though I'm pretty sure there is Ich in the tank. So what I had in mind: since there is no active ich outbreak, I'd like to start with a TTM in combination with ESHA Gdex. ESHA Gdex treats skin and gill flukes (Monogenea like Gyrodactylus sp. And Dactylogyrus sp.) And tape-worms (Cestoda). Copy paste from the TTM topic and the ESHA Gdex instructions:
Day 1 – Fish is placed in initial QT
Day 1: 1 drop for 1 liter aquarium water
Day 2: 0.5 drop for 1 liter aquarium water
Day 3: 0.5 drop for 1 liter aquarium water
Day 4 – 72 hours later transfer the fish to a new tank.
Day 7 – Repeat.
Day 7: 1 drop for 1 litre aquarium water
Day 8: 0.5 drop for 1 litre aquarium water
Day 9: 0.5 drop for 1 litre aquarium water
Day 10 – Repeat.
Day 13 – Repeat and done.
At this point I would keep him in observation and I'm hoping to see an improvement in his breathing. If all goes well, I will follow up with a treatment of ESHA NDX, which covers nematodes. This is just a two day treatment, followed by another tank transfer.
The treatment instructions overlap well with a TTM schedule I believe, but please give me your thoughts. And for the big question: how sure can I be that I'm not bringing ich along.
- Background: he's the lone survivor of this situation here and came in via here. Looking back I'm embarrassed to even link these threats but ok. In short, the previous owner had an Ich outbreak. So chances are high there is still Ich in the tank. The nitrate values were off the charts. All fish in this tank had heavy breathing all the time. When the pH dropped too low for a while, they became vulnerable and died to something afterwards. Symptoms were heavy scratching against the rocks, loosing parts of their fins because of it and finally a very colorless look, damaged mucus layer, slime coming off and finally death for all except the yellow tang. At some point I'm sure I remember seeing stringy poop even on one of the fish that died.
- Current state of the tank: so we are months if not almost a year later now, everything is pretty stable. Nitrates are a thing of the past.
- Current health of the tang: pretty fat and healthy overall if you ask me. Except for one thing: his breathing remains heavy as always.
Now I'm no expert obviously, but after observing a lot more fish over the last year, at stores and my own fish. I'm pretty sure the tangs breathing can't be considered normal. Even though it has become the standard for him, I've seen other tangs with a lot slower breathing. If I compare the clownfish that came with the yellow tang, with the clownfish that is now in my P650, I can say this breathing is defenitly not normal. My current clownfish almost never opens his mouth, while the ones that came with the tang had a constant open mouth. Just to put the difference in perspective. This leads me to think these fish defenitly had/have some kind of parasite on their gils.
Back to the main topic. This is another reason I'm very afraid of using copper at this stage. Even though I'm pretty sure there is Ich in the tank. So what I had in mind: since there is no active ich outbreak, I'd like to start with a TTM in combination with ESHA Gdex. ESHA Gdex treats skin and gill flukes (Monogenea like Gyrodactylus sp. And Dactylogyrus sp.) And tape-worms (Cestoda). Copy paste from the TTM topic and the ESHA Gdex instructions:
Day 1 – Fish is placed in initial QT
Day 1: 1 drop for 1 liter aquarium water
Day 2: 0.5 drop for 1 liter aquarium water
Day 3: 0.5 drop for 1 liter aquarium water
Day 4 – 72 hours later transfer the fish to a new tank.
Day 7 – Repeat.
Day 7: 1 drop for 1 litre aquarium water
Day 8: 0.5 drop for 1 litre aquarium water
Day 9: 0.5 drop for 1 litre aquarium water
Day 10 – Repeat.
Day 13 – Repeat and done.
At this point I would keep him in observation and I'm hoping to see an improvement in his breathing. If all goes well, I will follow up with a treatment of ESHA NDX, which covers nematodes. This is just a two day treatment, followed by another tank transfer.
The treatment instructions overlap well with a TTM schedule I believe, but please give me your thoughts. And for the big question: how sure can I be that I'm not bringing ich along.
