Ich? Fungal infection? Halp please

[ros3to]

So I got this "quarantined" (in quotes because I'm clueless on how the store quarantines its fish) purple tang, the fish is doing great except it's now covered in white spots, fish looked healthy and fat for over 2 weeks while I made up my mind on wether I wanted to bring it home or not.
To make things short I ended up buying it and brought it home.
On day 1, June 9th there was no signs of illness or anything at all, fish would eat and swim normal, however my powder brown wasn't having it the purple tang got it's rear handed a couple of times, upon noticing this i acted quickly and stuck a mirror to the side of the tank, powder brown wouldn't ignore itself and the purple tang was left alone,

Day 2 powder brown is still busy with it's own image, I removed the mirror and it went straight for the purple tang but didn't get to it so I put the mirror back up.

Day 3 I come back home do my usual routine and last I tend to the tank, then I notice that the powder brown is still busy with it's own image but this time it's covered in white spots but still acting the same, I got the fish out and freshwater dipped it, back in it went

Day 4
Spots on powder brown tang no longer visible thought I had this

Day 5 purple tang now has white dots

These white dots all vary in size and color, some are more faint than others, seems like some change location some don't.
in 2 occasions I noticed how these dots would secrete a small little string off the side sadly I didn't get that in the video or in pictures.

Would the powder brown stressing with it's own image have caused it to get ich? Did i introduce it with the new addition?
Any tips and help on this would be greatly appreciated

 

[vetteguy53081]

So I got this "quarantined" (in quotes because I'm clueless on how the store quarantines its fish) purple tang, the fish is doing great except it's now covered in white spots, fish looked healthy and fat for over 2 weeks while I made up my mind on wether I wanted to bring it home or not.
To make things short I ended up buying it and brought it home.
On day 1, June 9th there was no signs of illness or anything at all, fish would eat and swim normal, however my powder brown wasn't having it the purple tang got it's rear handed a couple of times, upon noticing this i acted quickly and stuck a mirror to the side of the tank, powder brown wouldn't ignore itself and the purple tang was left alone,

Day 2 powder brown is still busy with it's own image, I removed the mirror and it went straight for the purple tang but didn't get to it so I put the mirror back up.

Day 3 I come back home do my usual routine and last I tend to the tank, then I notice that the powder brown is still busy with it's own image but this time it's covered in white spots but still acting the same, I got the fish out and freshwater dipped it, back in it went

Day 4
Spots on powder brown tang no longer visible thought I had this

Day 5 purple tang now has white dots

These white dots all vary in size and color, some are more faint than others, seems like some change location some don't.
in 2 occasions I noticed how these dots would secrete a small little string off the side sadly I didn't get that in the video or in pictures.

Would the powder brown stressing with it's own image have caused it to get ich? Did i introduce it with the new addition?
Any tips and help on this would be greatly appreciated

Purple susceptible to ich and I cant emphasize enough, whenever you buy a fish quarantined or not, always assume it has something and quarantine yourself for at least 21 day, preferably 30 day. Many stores will keep copper level at 1.5ppm which is below the level where copper takes effect at 2.0ppm to keep tanks safe from higher level. In turn, as in your case a fish is still susceptible to disease.
Now both tangs and any other fish will require quarantine for a full 30 days at treatment level 2.25 and monitored with a Hanna brand copper test kit (do not interrupt this 30 day period) monitored by a reliable Copper Test kit such as Hanna Brand- No API brand. Also monitor Ammonia levels while in quarantine with a reliable test kit and add aeration during treatment using an air stone.
The display tank will have to be kept fishless (FALLOW) for 6-8 weeks to assure the existing parasites go through their life cycle without a host fish and die off and with occupants exposed, they too should go into quarantine

 

[MnFish1]

Can you post a picture of the fish. Freshwater dips are not effective at curing disease - but if the fish is in severe distress can buy time while you treat with medication. What you're describing sounds like Ich - Which would be treated with copper (chelated - at a level of 2-2.5 in a hospital tank) - and all of your fish will need treatment if indeed it is ich. Were your other fish quarantined?

 

[mmorrison55]

Can’t see your image, but I’d wager it’s ich. Stress can bring it out, and it sounds like you had a good bit of stress in the tank after introducing the purple tang.

Hard to say where it came from, just as likely the powder brown had it, but it was dormant until all the dust up occurred. Try and get some photos under white light for vetteguy or jay hemdal to diagnose.

I just had ich wipe out 95% of my inhabitants and im pretty sure it was from a powder blue.

Any future tang will for sure go into a QT tank and be treated with copper before I put them in my display again. I love tangs, but it seems they all have ich and it’s just a waiting game for it to come out. Maybe im overreacting, but that’s how it seems to me.

 

[MnFish1]

PS - I don't think the mirror caused the stress which then caused ich. My guess is that it came in on the purple tang. Additionally, a YouTube video is better - many people cannot see your image.

 

[ros3to]

Purple susceptible to ich and I cant emphasize enough, whenever you buy a fish quarantined or not, always assume it has something and quarantine yourself for at least 21 day, preferably 30 day. Many stores will keep copper level at 1.5ppm which is below the level where copper takes effect at 2.0ppm to keep tanks safe from higher level. In turn, as in your case a fish is still susceptible to disease.
Now both tangs and any other fish will require quarantine for a full 30 days at treatment level 2.25 and monitored with a Hanna brand copper test kit (do not interrupt this 30 day period) monitored by a reliable Copper Test kit such as Hanna Brand- No API brand. Also monitor Ammonia levels while in quarantine with a reliable test kit and add aeration during treatment using an air stone.
The display tank will have to be kept fishless (FALLOW) for 6-8 weeks to assure the existing parasites go through their life cycle without a host fish and die off and with occupants exposed, they too should go into quarantine

Ouch it might be a little hard for me to get 13 fish into a tank, what size tank do you recommend i put my tangs in?
Thanks for your input.

 

[ros3to]

I uploaded a video not sure why it's not showing I'll put it up on the tube

 

[MnFish1]

Ouch it might be a little hard for me to get 13 fish into a tank, what size tank do you recommend i put my tangs in?
Thanks for your input.

is it a FOWLR or is it a reef tank with inverts? What other fish do you have - you can also use a food grade tub as a QT. You could consider hypo salinity if no inverts - or you could remove corals etc - if that would be easier

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ouch it might be a little hard for me to get 13 fish into a tank, what size tank do you recommend i put my tangs in?
Thanks for your input.

Minimum 40 breeder, even a 55g

 

[ros3to]

is it a FOWLR or is it a reef tank with inverts? What other fish do you have - you can also use a food grade tub as a QT. You could consider hypo salinity if no inverts - or you could remove corals etc - if that would be easier

Reef tank
I have a few fish in there
1 6 line wrasse, 2 chromis, 2 clowns, 1 coral beauty, 1 cardinal, 1 yellow watchman, 1 yellow tail damsel, 1 lawnmower blenny, 1 mandarin, 1 Maldives mcCoskers wrasse and the 2 tangs.

 

[ros3to]

Minimum 40 breeder, even a 55g

As far as filtration goes just some hob filter with some media from my display or no media?

 

[ros3to]

 

[vetteguy53081]

As far as filtration goes just some hob filter with some media from my display or no media?

Yes and in lieu of cartridge, you can add a sponge or floss basted with liquid bacteria such as MicroBacter xlm or 7

 

[ros3to]

I have a 29 gal and a 55gal I will be using for this, i will separate both tangs as I believe i will see more aggression the only thing I'm worried about is the mandarin as it doesn't take any frozen food any tips for that?

 

[ros3to]

Im reading that i should not treat my mandarin and wrasses with copper medications. How would one go about this then?

 

[Dr. Reef Verified Sponsor]

, fish looked healthy and fat for over 2 weeks while I made up my mind on wether I wanted to bring it home or not.
To make things short I ended up buying it and brought it home.

So I am assuming from your orginial post, That you watched this fish for 2 weeks likely at a LFS or somewhere you had access to it for 2 weeks and it looked great and you were told its in qt or was qted so its good to add to your main tank.
After bringing it home and adding to your tank, in 3-5 days you have fish covered in white spots.
This time frame is highly unlikley to have fish covered in ich or velvet in 3-5 days unless the tank was infected previously. Just my experience and professional guess.
Ich or velvet would have taken at least 2-3 weeks to show symptoms unless the purple tang was covered in white spots when you brought it home. which is not the case as you mentioned.
I have a feeling it was some other fish in your system that already had the parasite and with new fish added and stress levels going up, immmune system going down, parasite went into full attack mode.
Either way its too late for all the assumptions.
Fish (ALL) will need to come out and goto a hospital tank and need to be treated with copper and main tank needs to stay fish-less for 70-75 days.

You can doa second tank with mandarins and wrasses in hypo for ich (for velvet you must use copper, maybe at much lower dose and increase very very slowly over time and keep it at lower end of therapeutic level). But looking at the video, it looks like ich.

 

[ros3to]

, fish looked healthy and fat for over 2 weeks while I made up my mind on wether I wanted to bring it home or not.
To make things short I ended up buying it and brought it home.

So I am assuming from your orginial post, That you watched this fish for 2 weeks likely at a LFS or somewhere you had access to it for 2 weeks and it looked great and you were told its in qt or was qted so its good to add to your main tank.
After bringing it home and adding to your tank, in 3-5 days you have fish covered in white spots.
This time frame is highly unlikley to have fish covered in ich or velvet in 3-5 days unless the tank was infected previously. Just my experience and professional guess.
Ich or velvet would have taken at least 2-3 weeks to show symptoms unless the purple tang was covered in white spots when you brought it home. which is not the case as you mentioned.
I have a feeling it was some other fish in your system that already had the parasite and with new fish added and stress levels going up, immmune system going down, parasite went into full attack mode.
Either way its too late for all the assumptions.
Fish (ALL) will need to come out and goto a hospital tank and need to be treated with copper and main tank needs to stay fish-less for 70-75 days.

You can doa second tank with mandarins and wrasses in hypo for ich (for velvet you must use copper, maybe at much lower dose and increase very very slowly over time and keep it at lower end of therapeutic level). But looking at the video, it looks like ich.

Yes i did have access to the purple tang before it was bought and also yes the powder brown which ive had for almost 2 years was the first to show symptoms,
Right now im in the process of filtering some water as i dont have 80gals of water sitting around lol but hopefully i can have both hospital tanks set up tomorrow night

 

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

Yes i did have access to the purple tang before it was bought and also yes the powder brown which ive had for almost 2 years was the first to show symptoms,
Right now im in the process of filtering some water as i dont have 80gals of water sitting around lol but hopefully i can have both hospital tanks set up tomorrow night

I viewed the video - the tang does have ich. The other fish, being exposed, will all need to be treated. This is going to be a major undertaking. The two options are: remove all of the coral and invertebrates and treat your display with hyposalinity, or remove all of the fish and treat them with Coppersafe or copper power at 2.25 ppm for 30 days, then hold the DT fishless for a total of 70 days.

Another option would be to pull the purple tang and cross your fingers that it doesn’t spread to your other fish (that depends on if those fish are resistant to ich from some recent prior exposure).

 

[ros3to]

Yes i did have access to the purple tang before it was bought and also yes the powder brown which ive had for almost 2 years was the first to show symptoms,
Right now im in the process of filtering some water as i dont have 80gals of water sitting around lol but hopefully i can have both hospital tanks set up tomorrow night

I viewed the video - the tang does have ich. The other fish, being exposed, will all need to be treated. This is going to be a major undertaking. The two options are: remove all of the coral and invertebrates and treat your display with hyposalinity, or remove all of the fish and treat them with Coppersafe or copper power at 2.25 ppm for 30 days, then hold the DT fishless for a total of 70 days.

Another option would be to pull the purple tang and cross your fingers that it doesn’t spread to your other fish (that depends on if those fish are resistant to ich from some recent prior exposure).

I would really like to take the hyposalinity approach, but im afraid it would be a no go since there is a bunch of coral encrusted onto rocks
As far as only quarantining the purple alone, i think I'd rather do all of them, better safe than sorry lol
I will do 2 separate tanks and put a tang in each one of them
One tank will be treated with copper and the other i will do hyposalinity due to some fish sensitivity to copper.
Question here would be which tang should go into copper and which tang on hypo?
Lets take in cosideration that the purple is the one mostly being affected but the outbreak started with the powder brown.
Other question for hyposalinity, how to safely acclimate fish to lower salinity? Do i need to do that gradually? And how slow?
Thank again for all of yalls input its much appreciated

 

[MnFish1]

I would really like to take the hyposalinity approach, but im afraid it would be a no go since there is a bunch of coral encrusted onto rocks
As far as only quarantining the purple alone, i think I'd rather do all of them, better safe than sorry lol
I will do 2 separate tanks and put a tang in each one of them
One tank will be treated with copper and the other i will do hyposalinity due to some fish sensitivity to copper.
Question here would be which tang should go into copper and which tang on hypo?
Lets take in cosideration that the purple is the one mostly being affected but the outbreak started with the powder brown.
Other question for hyposalinity, how to safely acclimate fish to lower salinity? Do i need to do that gradually? And how slow?
Thank again for all of yalls input its much appreciated

1. It doesn't matter much which tang goes into hypo salinity (either one is fine) - given what you said I would put the purple in copper
2. There is a protocol at the top of the forum In the form of a stickie - 'Hyposalinity' - which explains how to do it.