Feeling Gutted - Suspected PBT with Ich

[mmorrison55]

I had a total loss of all the fish in the tank, roughly 18 months ago. Unfortunately videos weren't able to confirm the cause, and symptoms didn't really point to one specific disease.

I then quarantined the whole restocking of the tank following the current protocol. This thread starts off with the problems the PBT experienced, which was believed to be mucus plugs/ICH. I removed all fish for 60 days and ran them through 30 days of copper. I lost a Gem tang and carpenters wrasse in the process. I replaced them with the yellow and mystery wrasse, all which went through the current qt protocol.

@Jay Hemdal the color may be darker as this is a hybrid PBT with the white cheek tang.

Sorry about your losses. I didn’t notice the date on the original post.

I too lost 90% of my stock from ich earlier this year. I went fallow as Jay had outlined before I added anything back in, and all new fish that have been bought are from a LFS who I know qt’s or from online vendors such as dr reef who qts all his fish.

But even so, im still not confident ich won’t return again.

hopefully someday this problem will be solved in this hobby or a safer and easier way to treat will come along, but it sure sucks the big one now.

 

[Lostoften]

Yeah, the other problem that arose when I pulled the fish to go fallow is that I lost the majority of my coral. I assume even though I maintained nutrients there wasn't enough food for the cuc. Either it was the dino's or peppermint shrimp or emerald crab but I lost 95% of my zoa's and then LPS suffered poly bail out one by one over a several weeks. Been an extremely frustrating re-entry into the hobby to say the least.

 

[Damage12]

Not trying to place blame, but I personally believe that keeping stress of fish down helps in keeping ich at bay. A PBT and Gem tang among other medium size fish in a 130 gallon tank is going to cause stress amongst all the fish. I’ve had an Achilles that had ich after initial introduction into my 180 gal tank, but feeding lots of variety of food and no other tangs in the tank were enough to cure him. No copper or other meds used. No ich problems after that and I had him for around 7-10 years (can’t remember exactly).

Just take your time with adding fish, don’t overstock, only 1 tang if your tank is 6’ long or under. Just my humble opinion.

 

[Lostoften]

From reading others online, I thought I could keep 3 tangs healthy. The tank is 5' long and below is the current stocking:

PBT Tang
White Tail Tang
Yellow Tang
Magnificent Foxface
Copperband Butterfly
Flame Angel
Filefish
Moyers leopard wrasse
Mystery Wrasse
Diamond Goby
Lyretail anthia
2 clownfish

 

[Damage12]

From reading others online, I thought I could keep 3 tangs healthy. The tank is 5' long and below is the current stocking:

PBT Tang
White Tail Tang
Yellow Tang
Magnificent Foxface
Copperband Butterfly
Flame Angel
Filefish
Moyers leopard wrasse
Mystery Wrasse
Diamond Goby
Lyretail anthia
2 clownfish

I hear you. Lots of opinions online (some good and some bad) and some people luckily get away with multiple tangs in a smaller tank but I don’t think it’s sustainable if you want to keep fish alive 10+ years. I’m currently planning a 400g display build and don’t think I would put more than 2-3 tangs in it.

Best of luck to you.