Baby blue tang has Ich and I’m a newb, please help⁉️

[Dmat21]

Well came home to a disappointment today..

My baby blue hippo tang definitely seems to have Ich..
It “ kind of looks like powder” all over his tail and a few speckles throughout his body.
‍poor guy, even when you think you got it all covered...

unfortunately I’m disabled and need help with maintenance from pops and the one tank Serves plenty of that, so there’s no way I could keep up with a quarantine tank nor have one unfortunately.

In the tank 3 weeks the blue tang. two anthias, and 3turbos
Loving life from what it seems, they got the best food available in every form LOL
I should mention that I lost a peppermint and cleaner shrimp this week.
What do I do!?
There’s no way we’re catching this lil bugga ‍
Anything to treat the DT?

Build
5 months old
Apex, filter socks, skimmer, ATO, .5% daily AWC, UV filter low flow, five stage RODI, plenty of places to hide, bare bottom tank with good flow, biobrick.
At the moment my temperature is on average 77, PH; 7.7,
salinity; 34.5 and last week kh; 8.7 phosphates were at .03 and nitrates next to nothing.
So I tried feeding a little heavier, then all this..
I’ll be testing parameters tomorrow just got back from a trip and have no way to do it tonight..

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Let’s get you some help

@ReefSquad @Jay Hemdal

in the meantime, if you have a spare tank, I believe best practice is to have the individuals who assist you set up a hospital tank so you can observe and treat the little guy. Beyond that, most will recommend letting your display tank run fallow (I don’t recall if the recommended time is 45 or 75 days) without any fish to allow any ick to die off and any more to go through its life cycle without further propagation.

 

[ZoWhat]

Unfortunately your lil dude's immune system is having trouble fighting off the newness of the tank.

The only suggestion I have is to keep water parameters extremely stable, cut feedings back to normal or less, maybe soak the food in garlic juice so it will indice it to gobble up every bit of food presented.

A probiotic food with an immunity boost is called for. Lean on a LFS's advice on their best probiotic food

This is an excellent one I use:

New Life Spectrum Thera+A​

My Tangs eat this stuff like it's free filet-mignon... lololol

It's really an issue if it has enough immunity to pull through this. This is coming from a hobbyists of 15+ years who have had some Tangs pull thru while others pass away. There is no sure-fire way. It's up to the fish's immune system.

Biggest thing right now is to not overfeed it but what you do feed it must have a nutritional PUNCH in da'face, lol.

Much like if we were really sick, we'd be drinking superfood smoothies with great nutrients and vitamins.

Wishing you the best.


.

 

[Sharkbait19]

Hmmm....

The suddenness of symptoms and the powdery look you describe seems to point to velvet, unfortunately. Hopefully @Jay Hemdal will chime in soon.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Hi, really sorry to hear about your tang. In my experience, if you can't move the fish to a treatment tank and either run it through TTM or copper, you probably won't be able to cure it. There are a lot of "reef safe" ich medications on the market, but most do not have studies to back up their efficacy. Many of them are simply botanical extracts. Polyp Labs Reef Safe Medic is a peroxide salt, so in theory should have some benefit in treating ich.

Your losing two shrimp last week is also concerning - not related to ich, I worry there could be a water quality issue going on as well.

Jay

 

[Dmat21]

Hmmm....

The suddenness of symptoms and the powdery look you describe seems to point to velvet, unfortunately. Hopefully @Jay Hemdal will chime in soon.

Hm like dandruff looking, the tail just seems to be the Most populated with whatever it is

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Any chance you could post a pic? That should be enough to determine if it’s ick or velvet

 

[dvgyfresh]

I had a tang / copperband fish that had ich from LFS in DT , I feed mysis soaked in selcon / new life spectrum pellets and within a week they got fat and all the spots were gone.

 

[dvgyfresh]

I also have cleaner shrimp and the fish would lay on the sand to let them get at them .. not sure if they actually helped too much but they do clean parasites

 

[Dmat21]

Hi, really sorry to hear about your tang. In my experience, if you can't move the fish to a treatment tank and either run it through TTM or copper, you probably won't be able to cure it. There are a lot of "reef safe" ich medications on the market, but most do not have studies to back up their efficacy. Many of them are simply botanical extracts. Polyp Labs Reef Safe Medic is a peroxide salt, so in theory should have some benefit in treating ich.

Your losing two shrimp last week is also concerning - not related to ich, I worry there could be a water quality issue going on as well.

Jay

If I’m running a five stage rodi with a flush valve, where could the water quality suffer?
my freshwater bin is a black water storage bin food grade from Home Depot and saltwater sits in a brute being circulated couple of times throughout the day. My ppm when I checked where pretty high unless calibration is off.. but I don’t understand why this could be happening if it does in fact have a high ppm.

 

[Dmat21]

Any chance you could post a pic? That should be enough to determine if it’s ick or velvet

Yes I will try to get one. my lights are real blue in the evening so it may be hard to see it at the moment

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Yes I will try to get one. my lights are real blue in the evening so it may be hard to see it at the moment

Even a pic under blues may be enough.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

If I’m running a five stage rodi with a flush valve, where could the water quality suffer?
my freshwater bin is a black water storage bin food grade from Home Depot and saltwater sits in a brute being circulated couple of times throughout the day. My ppm when I checked where pretty high unless calibration is off.. but I don’t understand why this could be happening if it does in fact have a high ppm.

Not the starting quality per-se, but ammonia specifically. Do you have any idea why else the shrimp could have died? Were they missing legs or anything? Losing a shrimp happens, but losing two in week is more of an issue.
Jay

 

[Rmckoy]

Some spots can be fought with just food and a no stress environment .

for the shrimp ...
is there a chance there might be copper in the system or leaching from rocks ?

I have always had a hard time keeping peppermint shrimp , in many well established systems , they sometimes don’t last .
luckily the current cleaner shrimp I’ve had almost 2 years

 

[Dmat21]

Not the starting quality per-se, but ammonia specifically. Do you have any idea why else the shrimp could have died? Were they missing legs or anything? Losing a shrimp happens, but losing two in week is more of an issue.
Jay

Hmm I’m stumped, I have Seachem ammonia badge is reading 0

 

[Dmat21]

Some spots can be fought with just food and a no stress environment .

for the shrimp ...
is there a chance there might be copper in the system or leaching from rocks ?

I have always had a hard time keeping peppermint shrimp , in many well established systems , they sometimes don’t last .
luckily the current cleaner shrimp I’ve had almost 2 years

Idk that’s a good question
using caribsea life rock

 

[Dmat21]

Unfortunately I woke up to the blue tang dead. Upon inspecting him outside of the tank he definitely had ich. had little white bumbs on skin. That was quick..
my anthias seem fine
Nitrates practically 0
Phosphorus tested after feeding 200
Alkalinity 8.7
Calcium around 500
Magnesium around 30

 

[Glenner’sreef]

Sorry you’re going through this. This sounds like a swim tank. Little to no corals true? The deception and beauty of walking through your lfs is that you’ll rarely see ich on any of their livestock. That is because their salinity levels are less like nsw 1.026 and more like 1.018. This hypo-salinity state reeks havoc on parasites. Then when the hobbyist gets home with their fish, its acclimated to into a higher salt content thus reviving the parasites.
Don’t lose heart. Go buy another tang and enjoy it for years.