Yellow tang with ich and internal parasites

[Calappidae]

I have a 2 inch yellow tang in a 10 gal QT right now. It was in the same tank as a ich invested niger trigger and I see 2 brown strings coming out of that white dot on their tails.

The QT is actually my mini-reef full of invertebrates so I can't dose or anything like that. No other fish are in the tank either. Suggestions on how to treat it? Freshwater dip is what I keep hearing but I feel thats a little stressful making the issue worse..

I got it at petco and while I'm setting up my 125 gallon I figured I would try and help it meanwhile in my 10 gal.

 

[Deinonych]

A freshwater dip will not treat cryptocaryon. If your QT is a mini-reef it really is no different than a DT in terms of treatment options. If you want to get rid of the parasite, you will need to treat the tang in a dedicated hospital tank. My personal preference is chloroquine phosphate or Cupramine.

 

[Calappidae]

Putting it in a bucket, dosing it, and adding back to the QT(or mini-reef DT..) wouldn't work either? The main DT tank is a 125 gallon.

 

[H.reidi.MN]

Don't think a bucket would work most meds need weeks to work 4-6 ideally for cupramine. Observe him in the 10 gal and cycle a small sponge filter if you can and set up another 10 or 20 with PVC and treat him properly in there or you risk infestation. I just made a Petco rescue run 2 weeks ago and grabbed a flameback, coris wrasse and diamond goby. Dipped each in fw then put them in my 20l observed great feeding after 2 days and started cupramine over the course of 3 days as the flameback was infested with ich ...

 

[Deinonych]

If the tang has crypto right now (assuming it does since it was in a tank with another infected fish), and it's in the mini-DT/QT, the QT is infected, or at least potentially so. In order to ensure no crypto remains, you would need to treat the fish in a dedicated hospital tank and leave the mini-DT/QT fishless for 10-12 weeks. Otherwise you risk the fish being re-infected.

 

[Mrscribbled]

+1^^^

 

[Calappidae]

My concern with dosing is will it be on the fish and get tracked back into my other systems... or does it eventually wear off? (All my tanks have inverts in them.)

 

[Deinonych]

Are you talking about treating with copper? If so, it doesn't "stick" to the fish. Once treatment ends, you should remove the copper from the aquarium using a product like Cuprasorb.

 

[Calappidae]

and cuprasorb is non-toxic to the inverts and corals as well? Its the way I acclimate.. i'm worried about even the tiniest bit of water transferring from the hospitel tank and end up killing all my inverts.

 

[Deinonych]

Cuprasorb is a heavy metal adsorbent. It does not affect the water chemistry at all. Using it from 5-7 days usually removes all traces of copper from the tank. Just test daily until copper is undetectable. Seachem and Salifert test kits work best for copper IME.

 

[Calappidae]

Does this sound ok?

Whenever I get my 125 gallon cycling... I'm going to setup a 10 gallon, and put the fish in it and dose daily with this stuff http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=12100 1 capful for a week... then since the tank is cycling and nothing was put in it yet, I'll just add the fish to the 125 after its done cycling.. and I'll repeat for all my other fish I already have in my 30 gallon because half were from the same petco and may have parasites and disease themselves.

 

[gone fishin]

Sorry to say that stuff will not do anything for ich.

There are only 3 ways to be rid of ich.
1. hyposalinity hard to pull off and not always effective.
2. copper treatment
3. tank transfer method.
all 3 options require a dedicated Qt/Ht. In addition the DT tanks must remain fishless for a minimum of 8 weeks. I prefer 10-12 weeks to be sure. If you move any sand or rock over to the new 125 without the 30 being fallow, or any other minireef these fish have been exposed to, you risk introducing ich into the 125. Bigger the tank bigger the headache.

 

[Calappidae]

Sorry to say that stuff will not do anything for ich.

There are only 3 ways to be rid of ich.
1. hyposalinity hard to pull off and not always effective.
2. copper treatment
3. tank transfer method.
all 3 options require a dedicated Qt/Ht. In addition the DT tanks must remain fishless for a minimum of 8 weeks. I prefer 10-12 weeks to be sure. If you move any sand or rock over to the new 125 without the 30 being fallow, or any other minireef these fish have been exposed to, you risk introducing ich into the 125. Bigger the tank bigger the headache.

Well, the cycle process alone should scratch off a month of the time ick has in the 125 if I use the same rocks. Then the next month I'll just add my inverts over time like I should so either way it should be fish safe and ready when its time to add them. :spin2: