Blue tang ich

[Kristophf]

Hi, i have a 500l tank only running 2 months i had to cycle very quickly to take some fish off a friend who needed to shutdown their tank. I managed to cycle it fast with media and rock and get the blue tang, mata tang and a comet betta in within a few weeks. It took alot of water changes but ive just moved the fish in and got the tank stabilized.

Params are all pretty good, just doing weekly water changes to keep nitrates below 10ppm.

I also have a 100l tank that is holding a pair of clowns and 2 torches and a bta. And then i have another 80l nano tank with a few lps another pair of clowns and a dragonet. I was planning to start moving everything into the big tank.

The tang was in bad health when i got him and had HLLE which i have been treating and feeding nori. He seemed to be getting better and colour coming back but today i spotted a few white specks on his skin.

Problem is i was going to take in his gigeantea nem this week and put that in the big tank.

The mata and comet seem to be unaffected and wondering what the best treatment aproach would be. Should i just take the sick tang out and do freshwater dips or should i be treating all the fish? Also would introducing a gig be a bad idea now or can i get away with putting it in the 100L tank? Its quite large maybe about a foot when totally spread out...

Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[sean rand]

Hi, i have a 500l tank only running 2 months i had to cycle very quickly to take some fish off a friend who needed to shutdown their tank. I managed to cycle it fast with media and rock and get the blue tang, mata tang and a comet betta in within a few weeks. It took alot of water changes but ive just moved the fish in and got the tank stabilized.

Params are all pretty good, just doing weekly water changes to keep nitrates below 10ppm.

I also have a 100l tank that is holding a pair of clowns and 2 torches and a bta. And then i have another 80l nano tank with a few lps another pair of clowns and a dragonet. I was planning to start moving everything into the big tank.

The tang was in bad health when i got him and had HLLE which i have been treating and feeding nori. He seemed to be getting better and colour coming back but today i spotted a few white specks on his skin.

Problem is i was going to take in his gigeantea nem this week and put that in the big tank.

The mata and comet seem to be unaffected and wondering what the best treatment aproach would be. Should i just take the sick tang out and do freshwater dips or should i be treating all the fish? Also would introducing a gig be a bad idea now or can i get away with putting it in the 100L tank? Its quite large maybe about a foot when totally spread out...

Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks!

Pictures would help. If its ich you would need to put in qt and treat with copper for 14 or 30 days and go fishless for 10 weeks

 

[Kristophf]

Hard to see and glass is a bit dirty bit the specks are raised

 

[Kristophf]

Better pic

 

[sean rand]

Definitely ich possible velver as well. Take out and treat with copper in a qt tank and go fishless for 10 weeks

 

[Kristophf]

dang what a pain. Is the disease only transferred via fish or can it spread through rock? I had some rock in that big tank which i have put in the smaller tank would that be compromised now too?

Thanks!

 

[sean rand]

dang what a pain. Is the disease only transferred via fish or can it spread through rock? I had some rock in that big tank which i have put in the smaller tank would that be compromised now too?

Thanks!

Yes it would spread on the rock

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

I can’t tell by the pics what is going on with your fish, can you get a better pic? If you have ich then you should remove all fish from both tanks, place in QT. I recommend copper power ramped up to 2.0ppm for 14 days with a transfer to a sterile tank or just 30 days if kept in the same QT. You will need to run your exposed tanks fallow for 76 days.

 

[Kristophf]

Comet and mata look healthy and fine, tang def has what looks like ich i sent a pic to my lfs. He recommended running copper through the whole tank said it will kill good stuff on rock

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

Comet and mata look healthy and fine, tang def has what looks like ich i sent a pic to my lfs. He recommended running copper through the whole tank said it will kill good stuff on rock

Copper will kill your inverts and the rock will absorb it, I would recommend you get a QT set up

 

[Kristophf]

I have no inverts in the big tank and could use it to treat all suspected infested if i just moved the clowns back in. Im avoiding another tank as already running 3 and it would have to be fairly big to treat them all. But might be the best option

 

[ngoodermuth]

The problem with using copper in a tank with live rock is that the rock will cause the copper to be absorbed and then leach back out. So, you could be dosing, dosing, dosing and the level keeps dropping... and then all of a sudden your fish look unhappy so you test it and the copper is through the roof...

Also, if the plan is to put a nem in that tank... it could be quite a while before all of the copper is leached out and removed from the rocks, sand, and even the tank and equipment itself.

I’d highly recommend sourcing a bare-bones QT. You can use pvc fittings as hiding spots to reduce stress and seed it using bio-spira or similar to help combat ammonia. There’s a good article here on setting one up:

How to Quarantine
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?share_fid=1020&share_tid=189815&url=https://www.reef2reef.com/index.php?threads/How-to-Quarantine.189815/&share_type=t

As mentioned above, all “exposed” fish will need treated. Including your other tanks if it’s possible that you could have cross-contaminated (except the dragonet, since they won’t tolerate copper you’d need to source CP and treat him separately)

Blue tangs in particular generally don’t do well long term in ich-managed tanks, so to avoid having to do the whole process again after adding your other fish together with the treated ones...best to treat everyone now.

It’s a process, I won’t sugar coat it. But it’s much less stressful in the long run to have an ich-free tank.

 

[Kristophf]

I knew i was going to be taking on more by inheriting these fish and its been hektic on such little time, didnt expect ich to come with it... never dealt with it before. And the 2nd tank actually started as a kind of QT tank for a sick bta which is recovering. But to have a fully sterile tank which can also be used as a frag tank i guess is a very handy thing to have and something i can setup now and save myself more trouble later.. thanks for the link thats a good read [emoji108]

 

[Kristophf]

So ive got myself a 100l tank and everything else i need to start a QT. Decided go go with a canister filter. Im going to treat the fish 1 or 2 at a time and move them into a mates tank when theyre done treatment, starting with the tang as hes the only one showing actual symptoms. I have moved coral and nems into a tank on its own so it can start the "fallow" peroid.

My question is with seeding the QT. I have bottle bacteria and sponge. I was going to seed the QT with bacteria and matrix pebbles from my existing tank (may have the ich) since the copper treatment is meant to kill the parasites anyway i assume this is makes sense and would be the quickest way to seed the QT?

 

[Frtdrmrose7]

So ive got myself a 100l tank and everything else i need to start a QT. Decided go go with a canister filter. Im going to treat the fish 1 or 2 at a time and move them into a mates tank when theyre done treatment, starting with the tang as hes the only one showing actual symptoms. I have moved coral and nems into a tank on its own so it can start the "fallow" peroid.

My question is with seeding the QT. I have bottle bacteria and sponge. I was going to seed the QT with bacteria and matrix pebbles from my existing tank (may have the ich) since the copper treatment is meant to kill the parasites anyway i assume this is makes sense and would be the quickest way to seed the QT?

Yes for the initial seeding you can do that.

 

[Kristophf]

Cheers [emoji108]