Despite my best efforts, ich has returned

Bpfor3 · Aug 12, 2020

My reef is almost one year old. At the start i stocked 4 tangs as a cleanup crew and everyone got ich/velvet and died. I vowed never again. Tank went fallow for 80 days+. Bought 4 new tangs, PB, Purple, Orange Shoulder and Kole. QT'd all of them per Humblefish' Copper/prazi guidelines. Almost lost the PB due to a bacterial infection, but pulled it through with Furan2. Made it to my display and all are beautiful and healthy. Added a multicolor angel, maroon clown pair, melanurus wrasse. Was worried about copper, so i did Humblefish TTM for ich and velvet. All made it to display and all doing very, very well. Did TTM for a small sixline. All good.

Bought a Bellus Angel Pair, small clown trigger, and fox face from TSM Aquatics, whose QT protocol follows Humblefish' copper/prazi method.

All have been in the tank, looking great and growing for several months.

Looked in the tank on Monday and ill be danged, the tangs had ich. what the heck!? Just a few spots here and there, but i was crushed to say the least. I have no choice now but to manage it. I turned my UV on for 24 hours now. Was at 12. Feeding selcon and garlic. All the usual tricks. I am not adding any new fish and the only way to get all the fish out would be to tear down the tank.

I added a new Goniporia coral 4-5 days prior and i can only assume it came in on that.

We will see how it goes. So far no one else has it and fish are unaffected, although maybe the Kole is acting a little shy. (probably just my paranoia.)

I think i just need a hug.

Pic of tank the day before i noticed.

Qasimja · Aug 12, 2020

that really sucks sorry to hear it a lot of people do ich management and it works for lots good luck with it

Zionas · Aug 13, 2020

Tangs are notorious for getting ich, especially some Acanthurus species. You have two choices: Eradication and management.

Eradication involves moving all fish into a quarantine tank (or more than one) and treating with medications. Some of your fish can be sensitive to copper so I’ll leave it to the experts for more info.

The second way is management. This involves maintaining stable water parameters and feeding good foods. For your Tangs, this would mean a steady diet of greens. Spirulina algae, nori, etc. This approach may be the way to go as I assume you have too many fish to make a whole QT and treatment regimen too tedious and time consuming. A UV sterilizer controls pathogens before they try to infect the fish, but it may be worth looking into one if you don’t already have one. Now that you have an outbreak, good food and good water and hope the fishs’ immune systems can fight off ich.

Your PB (Powder Blue? Brown?) and Blue Hippo are massive ich magnets.

Bpfor3 · Aug 13, 2020

Well, i am down to about 2-3 spots on the purple tang. Everyone else seems clear. Could be in the middle of the cycle though, so still have my fingers crossed.

Zionas · Aug 13, 2020

Keep monitoring. Hope it all works out well for you.

Bpfor3 · Aug 14, 2020

This morning i can't see any spots, although the purple has a few scars. Keeping fingers crossed. i don't think i am going to have a wipe out. Only difference in this time and last is the tank is more mature and diverse and the water parameters, Alk, Cal, etc. are more stable

Jay Hemdal · Aug 14, 2020

Bpfor3 said:
My reef is almost one year old. At the start i stocked 4 tangs as a cleanup crew and everyone got ich/velvet and died. I vowed never again. Tank went fallow for 80 days+. Bought 4 new tangs, PB, Purple, Orange Shoulder and Kole. QT'd all of them per Humblefish' Copper/prazi guidelines. Almost lost the PB due to a bacterial infection, but pulled it through with Furan2. Made it to my display and all are beautiful and healthy. Added a multicolor angel, maroon clown pair, melanurus wrasse. Was worried about copper, so i did Humblefish TTM for ich and velvet. All made it to display and all doing very, very well. Did TTM for a small sixline. All good.

Bought a Bellus Angel Pair, small clown trigger, and fox face from TSM Aquatics, whose QT protocol follows Humblefish' copper/prazi method.

All have been in the tank, looking great and growing for several months.

Looked in the tank on Monday and ill be danged, the tangs had ich. what the heck!? Just a few spots here and there, but i was crushed to say the least. I have no choice now but to manage it. I turned my UV on for 24 hours now. Was at 12. Feeding selcon and garlic. All the usual tricks. I am not adding any new fish and the only way to get all the fish out would be to tear down the tank.

I added a new Goniporia coral 4-5 days prior and i can only assume it came in on that.

We will see how it goes. So far no one else has it and fish are unaffected, although maybe the Kole is acting a little shy. (probably just my paranoia.)

I think i just need a hug.

Pic of tank the day before i noticed.

Hug (virtual only due to COVID!) Sorry to hear. I would suspect the Goniopora as well. Some dealers use their coral systems to house delicate fish like mandarins. The corals then act as fomites (carriers) for any disease they have. If your dealer *never* puts fish in their coral system, then that wouldn't be the issue.

As you may know, when ich gets started in a system, the trophonts are all synced up and tend to drop off the fish in unison . That can give people false hope that it is going away, but then the next batch of tomites swarm onto the fish and the trophonts return. Eventually, they get out of sync and you see spots all of the time. The management issue that was mentioned takes advantage of this, and under really good conditions, the tomites don't return in full force and things sort of peter out.

Jay Hemdal

Bpfor3 · Aug 14, 2020

Hey Jay. This particular LFS does house fish in the coral system, so im pretty sure that is where it came from. I just have to hope it cycles out. Really my best hope is that the fish are in such good shape that they can fight it off. keeping my fingers crossed it is in fact going away and Im not in middle of the cycle. I will probably know by Monday.

Matt1997 · Aug 14, 2020

In my experience ich very rarely kills fish. Usually other factors.

h2so4hurts · Aug 14, 2020

What size UV? What flow rate? I QT everything but under no illusions that there probably aren't nasty things in my tank. Feed heavy, keep the system stable, and buy the biggest UV sterilizer you can while pushing the right flow through it

I like the LifeGard Pro-Max units. I have the 120w on my 500g running about 900gph through it 24/7.

FishTruck · Aug 14, 2020

I never had a tank crash from disease, but, I did have a staggering Ich problem for about a year. It eventually went away. No spots now for years.

Keep doing what you are doing. Take the theory that your fish will become immune to the strain of Ich that is in your tank. Take precautions to minimize new parasites in your tank (QT still makes sense) but prioritize the health of your fish over the idea of sterilizing your fish or your tank.

UV is a good idea and some people say that increased flow and bare-bottom helps.

...and - taking a break from new additions for a little while (avoiding new susceptible animals for a period of time 3 to 12 months) might be a good idea.

Bpfor3 · Aug 17, 2020

I am definitely in the cycle. Spots returned yesterday evening. A few other fish with spots. I have to do something. Going to set up my 40 gallon qt and maybe pull out the tangs.? That doesn’t make too much sense bc I know it will jump on them again when I reintroduce. Other option is try some herbal remedy like ich guard and keep doing what I’m doing. I have 14 fish and I don’t have a container big enough to house all of them outside my QT. The worst.

Jay Hemdal · Aug 17, 2020

I’m not a great proponent for tonics and reef safe fish meds....

That said, pulling just the tangs put for QT isn’t likely to work either, as you mentioned, it will just jump back. I know this sounds bad, but you may want to set your QT with copper and treat the sickest or most valuable fish, as many as you can safely triage there?

Jay

Bpfor3 · Aug 17, 2020

Thanks Jay. Everything sounds bad

i don't like the tonics either, but options limited. Right now, my fish are doing well. Acting normally. Scratching here or there. I may see it once a day. But the spots are definitely increasing. I may do some regular large water changes and vacuum gravel to see if i can reduce the swimmers. Maybe slowly reduce salinity a few points. I am not at the tipping point where i have to get them out, but the trend is not promising.

If all i had were large fish, i could trap them, but i have a few smaller ones, such as a sixline wrasse that wont ever go near a trap, which means no fallow period. Of course, even if i trap them there is the issue of housing 14 3-6" active reef fish outside the DT.

Ill keep posting on progress in the hopes something works and it helps someone else.

Paul B · Aug 17, 2020

Jay Hemdal said:
The management issue that was mentioned takes advantage of this, and under really good conditions, the tomites don't return in full force and things sort of peter out.

Jay is correct. I have been using the "management" system for almost fifty years and "never" lose anything to any disease (not once) but it is not just luck or throwing fish in and hoping.

(I also hate that name "Management", I like the name "Immune" better because thats what it is.)

For Ich Management or immunity, Feeding correctly doesn't just mean fresh food with greens. That won't work.
Some of the food needs to contain living bacteria like comes in worms and clams that were not commercially purchased specifically for aquarium fish. It needs to come from a grocery store.

The bacteria in a fishes gut completely controls it's immunity and copper kills gut bacteria forcing the fish to depend on drugs to control it's ich.

Food with live bacteria will keep a fish immune, providing the fish are not stressed in other ways. But if you already used copper, Prizapro or any other medication, it may take a long time to replace the fishes immunity and you may lose some fish.

You also can't mix the systems, you either need to use drugs and quarantine or get them immune.
Good Luck.

JumboShrimp · Aug 17, 2020

I read you OP carefully... seems like you were really on a great path and learned your early-lesson by having to go fallow 80 days; been there / done that!

Moral of the story: You’re only as good as your last ‘wet’ addition.

So glad you already have a UV plumbed into your system— hopefully that can help with management. Beautiful tank, and we are all pulling for you.

Great to hear from @Jay Hemdal — what an impressive career Bio!

Bpfor3 · Aug 17, 2020

Thank you Paul and Jay. Paul, what foods do you suggest? I have 4 tangs (first to show signs), a Bellus Pair, pair of Maroon clowns, a dwarf angel, a couple of wrasses, fox face, long nose hawk, and a small trigger. They all eat anything i throw in. The fox face and trigger came out of copper about 60 days ago. the Bellus angels came out 90 days ago. I did TTM for the angle, clowns and wrasses. The tangs have been out of copper for 7-8 months.

i have access to fresh shrimp, oysters, clams? i have a bunch of macro algae in a refugium.

Appreciate the comments!

FishTruck · Aug 17, 2020

Raw seafood or live food is what Paul B will recommend (I have his book and you should read it)... and feeding the whole animal - guts and all, live baby brine shrimp, black worms. You might see what you can get raw at your grocery store, chop it into fine bits and see what your fish like.

Bpfor3 · Aug 17, 2020

I got a few raw shrimp, cut the head off and split it down the middle and rubberbanded it to a small rock and left it for 20 minutes. Been using Selcon, Rods Food, Nori, Marine Cuisine, some other frozen and TDI Pellets. Been soaking in Garlic, but I don’t think that does anything.

I am going to get his book. Appreciate all the advice.