Achilles And Gem Tang Ich!

[Daniel400G]

Hello Everyone,

Need help!

I have a 4 inch Achilles Tang, Gem tang, and other fish listed below.
ALL the fish were eating fine, getting along, no fighting no stress.
Had the Achilles for 2 weeks and noticed Ich, in my 125 Gallon reef tank 7 days ago.
No signs of ich when I got him and he was eating.
Within 7 days I noticed a few spots day 1 to a lot more with days.
Started garlic, over feeding Mysis, anything I could find on the internet to try and get the fish healthy.
I also read that removing the fish would cause even more stress and to leave them in DT with the diet listed above.
The 2 inch gem tang, I found dead yesterday morning and decided that only a QT tank can fix this .
I pulled out all the fish yesterday, rid apart my tank that has been running for a year to catch them.
I bought a 55 gallon tank, hang on back filter with sponge only, air stone, heater, ammonia reader, put all the fish in and started a copper treatment. copper is at 4.25 to 4.5 ish, hard to read that colour strip chart.
My questions are the following and hope someone knows the answers to below,

1- After the 10 weeks of a fishless DT is the Ich gone?
2-Seachem label says 14 days of copper in QT, everywhere else I read it says to do it longer? True?
If so how long?
3-After all of that, 10 weeks, put fish back in DT, I don't ad anymore coral or fish to my DT will the ich be gone?

I mean will the ich be 100% gone for life!

Any other fish or coral from now on will be in the QT for min of 10 weeks, that Gem tang cost me $2,000.00 and only had him for 1 week!
Not sure if it was the Gem that introduced the Ich?

Other fish in QT, 4 small clowns, 5 chromis, 1 cleaner wrasse. 2 inch purple tang(that lived in the sump because of Gem tang was smaller)

Thank you for reading

 

[Crabs McJones]

Hello Everyone,

Need help!

I have a 4 inch Achilles Tang, Gem tang, and other fish listed below.
ALL the fish were eating fine, getting along, no fighting no stress.
Had the Achilles for 2 weeks and noticed Ich, in my 125 Gallon reef tank 7 days ago.
No signs of ich when I got him and he was eating.
Within 7 days I noticed a few spots day 1 to a lot more with days.
Started garlic, over feeding Mysis, anything I could find on the internet to try and get the fish healthy.
I also read that removing the fish would cause even more stress and to leave them in DT with the diet listed above.
The 2 inch gem tang, I found dead yesterday morning and decided that only a QT tank can fix this .
I pulled out all the fish yesterday, rid apart my tank that has been running for a year to catch them.
I bought a 55 gallon tank, hang on back filter with sponge only, air stone, heater, ammonia reader, put all the fish in and started a copper treatment. copper is at 4.25 to 4.5 ish, hard to read that colour strip chart.
My questions are the following and hope someone knows the answers to below,

1- After the 10 weeks of a fishless DT is the Ich gone?
2-Seachem label says 14 days of copper in QT, everywhere else I read it says to do it longer? True?
If so how long?
3-After all of that, 10 weeks, put fish back in DT, I don't ad anymore coral or fish to my DT will the ich be gone?

I mean will the ich be 100% gone for life!

Any other fish or coral from now on will be in the QT for min of 10 weeks, that Gem tang cost me $2,000.00 and only had him for 1 week!
Not sure if it was the Gem that introduced the Ich?

Other fish in QT, 4 small clowns, 5 chromis, 1 cleaner wrasse. 2 inch purple tang(that lived in the sump because of Gem tang was smaller)

Thank you for reading

Correct, after 76+ days of not having any fish to latch onto, the ich will die out. Copper treatments vary, most are 30 days. Which copper treatment are you using? After running fallow, and copper treatment to your fish, yes, the ich should be irradiated

 

[Dsnakes]

Bummer, sorry about the loss. I hope you can save the Achilles. Where did you get the Gem at? They've been under 1k for a while ;Greedy

 

[savetheocean]

Just don't freak out. Feed them quality food.

 

[Daniel400G]

Correct, after 76+ days of not having any fish to latch onto, the ich will die out. Copper treatments vary, most are 30 days. Which copper treatment are you using? After running fallow, and copper treatment to your fish, yes, the ich should be irradiated

Thank you for the reply,
100% Ich free?
I am using Cupramine made by Seachem.

I live in Canada and that is the going rate around here for a Gem tang. That's if you can even find one, took me 4 months to find one.

I am freaking out, I paid $500.00 for the Achilles, Huge loss on the gem, what a learning curve this is!

I am feed Nori seaweed sheets, New life Spectrum and Mysis.
Being careful not to over feed and causing other issues.

Thanks for the feed back and looking forward to more replies!

 

[Crabs McJones]

Thank you for the reply,
100% Ich free?
I am using Cupramine made by Seachem.

I live in Canada and that is the going rate around here for a Gem tang. That's if you can even find one, took me 4 months to find one.

I am freaking out, I paid $500.00 for the Achilles, Huge loss on the gem, what a learning curve this is!

I am feed Nori seaweed sheets, New life Spectrum and Mysis.
Being careful not to over feed and causing other issues.

Thanks for the feed back and looking forward to more replies!

Humblefish has an entire thread dedicated to copper treatment, but I grabbed the bits of info you're looking for and summed it up here

Cupramine is fully charged (ionic) copper, and has a therapeutic range of 0.4-0.5 mg/L or ppm. You would use a Seachem or Salifert copper test kit for Cupramine, as those are capable of reading copper in the low range.

Standard copper treatment lasts 30 consecutive days. The reason it takes so long is copper only targets the “free swimming stage” (the same holds true for all chemical treatments & hypo). While 7-14 days is the “norm” to reach this stage, certain strains of ich have prolonged life cycles. Indeed, even 30 days may not be long enough in some rare cases. This is why it is so important to observe after treatment ends, to ensure symptoms do not return.

Therapeutic copper levels must be maintained at all times during the 30 days, so testing often is important. If the level drops even slightly out of range, then the 30 day clock starts all over again. One reason your copper level may drop unexpectedly is if you are treating in a tank with rock and substrate; those should not be used in the presence of copper due to absorption. Conversely, if you exceed the therapeutic range you risk killing the fish.

Copper is a poison, pure and simple. It only works because most fish are able to withstand being in it longer than the parasites. Knowing this, it is wise to raise your copper level very slowly (over 5-7 days) instead of the usual 24 - 48 hours recommended on the labels. Doing so increases your odds of successfully treating a “copper sensitive” fish. The one exception to this rule is if Marine Velvet Disease is suspected, so due to it's fast killing nature you would want to raise the copper level to therapeutic within 24 hours. Remove copper after 30 days by doing a large water change and using a Poly Filter, Cuprisorb, carbon, etc.

 

[Daniel400G]

Great info!!!!!Thank you

 

[Big G]

Could you post a picture of the tang? I'd be worried you are dealing with velvet rather than Ich due to the Gem's rapid death. Velvet is rampant in the industry these days.

 

[Daniel400G]

 

[Daniel400G]

 

[Daniel400G]

 

[Daniel400G]

Last picture is in DT tank

 

[Big G]

Little hard to see clearly at that distance and with the blues on, but that sure looks like it may well be velvet. @Humblefish, @4FordFamily

 

[Daniel400G]

Going to try and load a video of gem tang just before he died. ......

 

[Big G]

Here's Humblefish's Emergency Treatment for Marine Velvet. Notice the comments about how a bath in acriflavine greatly increased survival rates.
Here's the link to the entire post: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/#post-2499399

Emergency Treatment for Marine Velvet Disease

I recently acquired 3 fish - Longnose Butterfly, Kole Tang, Naso Tang - with velvet. None showed visible physical symptoms right away, but they all came from a tank where velvet was known to be present so I just patiently waited. Before & after pictures will follow immediately after this write-up.

In short, the Butterflyfish didn’t make it; however the two tangs did. The only difference in their treatment was I used formalin (with Methylene Blue) on the butterfly in a bath solution, whereas the tangs got acriflavine (with NO Methylene Blue). It’s also worth noting that the butterfly & Kole Tang showed symptoms the worst, whereas the Naso only had moderate visible symptoms. Tangs are also generally considered hardier than butterflyfish, so there’s that factor to consider as well. Anyway, here is the treatment I used on them:

The short version:

• 5 minute freshwater dip
• Immediately afterwards, perform a chemical bath (in saltwater matching SG/temp the fish came from). You have two options:

1. Acriflavine (preferred) - Do the bath for 75-90 minutes, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain acriflavine: Acriflavine-MS and Ruby Reef Rally. DO NOT mix acriflavine with any other chemicals.
2. Formalin - Do the bath for 30-60 minutes max, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain formalin: Formalin-MS, Quick Cure, Aquarium Solutions Ich-X, Kordon Rid-Ich Plus. Use protection (rubber gloves, face mask, eye protection, etc.) whenever handling formalin as it is a known carcinogen! However, you can add Methylene Blue to the formalin bath (1 capful per 2-3 gallons of bath water.)

• After the bath, place the fish in a QT pre-dosed at 80mg/gal using Chloroquine phosphate. In theory, copper (exs. Cupramine, Coppersafe, Copper Power) should work just as well as CP. However, due to how fast velvet can reproduce you don’t have the luxury of slowly ramping up the copper level as is normally advised. Therefore, the fish needs to be placed in a QT with copper already at minimum therapeutic levels. This is the advantage CP has over copper in this particular situation.
• While in QT, use a wide spectrum antibiotic (exs. Seachem Kanaplex, Furan-2) for the first week to ward off any possible bacterial infections. Secondary bacterial infections are very common in fish with preexisting parasitic infestations such as velvet.
• Keep the fish in CP or copper (at therapeutic levels) for one month. However, you can transfer the fish into a non-medicated holding tank for observation after just two weeks (explained below). DO NOT lower the CP or copper level before transferring.

 

[Daniel400G]

How can you tell?

 

[Big G]

The rapid death of another fish in the tank. Big worry on this one.
Lots and lots of spots where the parasite has already detached and begun another rapid cycle. Velvet spotting is usually more numerous than Ich.

 

[Big G]

Check out these pictures Humblefish posted on Ich vs. Velvet. Trust your eyes. You can see the fish more clearly than we can. But the dead fish is troubling.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-difference-between-ich-velvet.315957/

 

[Big G]

Time is your enemy if it is indeed Velvet. You need to act to save the fish and the others in the tank as they too are infected now.

 

[Daniel400G]

Okay I understand .
Can I freshwater dip now that I have already start the copper treatment?

Once done the freshwater dip can he go back into QT tank with copper?