Keeping Achilles tang ick free in reef tank

[4FordFamily]

That leaves disease. Velvet is a fast killer that does not always exhibit physical symptoms (can suffocate a fish inside the gills.) Or even ich & flukes can reside only in the gills, and would cause fluid build up which can suffocate an Achilles.

This. Exactly. Literally no obvious symptoms at all.

 

[4FordFamily]

I have the achilles in a 55 cup taming tank and he is eating well so far and I will put him in DT when he gets fat enough

If any of your fish have had ich at any point in your dt the poor guy will come down with it unfortunately

 

[Humblefish]

In my experience, many other tangs can handle ich and fight it off just fine with proper water parameters and good husbandry and diet... But this genus struggles very much.

+1 Acanthurus (exs. Achilles, Powder Blue/Brown) + ich = rough road

 

[4FordFamily]

Don't forget goldrim!

 

[Armon_p]

Im not putting the achilles into the DT until I have him for 2 months in the qt and he is eating aggressively. He will be eating every type of food before I put him in DT

 

[4FordFamily]

If your dt has ever had a fish with ich (even if they never showed symptoms) there is a 90% chance he will get it and succumb.

 

[Armon_p]

If he gets it he will handle it. He is used to aquarium life and eats like a pig. There is a blue hippo in there with no ick visible

 

[4FordFamily]

If he gets it he will handle it. He is used to aquarium life and eats like a pig. There is a blue hippo in there with no ick visible

Ok what do I know. Let me know how that works out 2 months after he's in your DT.

Tried this many times, I'm ashamed to admit it.

 

[4FordFamily]

I might add that the purple, desjardini Sailfin, yellow, blonde naso, flame angel, and several other fish in my systems lived with ich without symptoms. Powder blues Browns and Achilles - 99% of the time will perish even if you're experienced and have fantastic water, immense amounts of flow, etc.

 

[Armon_p]

Not if they are healthy from the start, they can live with it it untill they fight it off, while eating high quality foods and being used to a aquaruim. I have had many successful attempts with powder blues and one gold rim with this method

 

[Keepswiming]

Not if they are healthy from the start, they can live with it it untill they fight it off, while eating high quality foods and being used to a aquaruim. I have had many successful attempts with powder blues and one gold rim with this method

There are countless threads talking about Achilles and how vulnerable they are to ich. I would qt all your fish for the sake of your beautiful Achilles, as I am doing for mine. I hope you end up qting everything because eventually you will loose the Achilles to ich. What does it mean to have a SuCCESSFUl ATTeMPTs, isn't that kind of contradicting each other?

 

[4FordFamily]

I jumped camp on this. I killed far too many acanthus. For each that makes it with ich in the system there are ten that eventually die. No one feeds their fish healthier foods and variety with selcon, cod liver oil, and garlic. Three types of nori and live Blackworms, 12 types of frozen food... My water is fantastic lots of flow everything is perfect.

It can be done but why kill fish unnecessarily to get the one that can? I ashamed to admit that I did it. I kept two for over a year but any stressful event and it took over. (Achilles)

 

[Keepswiming]

I jumped camp on this. I killed far too many acanthus. For each that makes it with ich in the system there are ten that eventually die. No one feeds their fish healthier foods and variety with selcon, cod liver oil, and garlic. Three types of nori and live Blackworms, 12 types of frozen food... My water is fantastic lots of flow everything is perfect.

It can be done but why kill fish unnecessarily to get the one that can? I ashamed to admit that I did it. I kept two for over a year but any stressful event and it took over. (Achilles)

That's my point, eventually (maybe a week or maybe 2yrs) they will perish 90 percent of the time... But no sense in making my point because people are going to do what they are going to do. I also lost two Achilles, so when I put my Achilles in the display and found out that somehow ich still got in the tank, I pulled them all out to redo the qt process. He has been in cupramine for a week now and eating like a champ!

 

[Armon_p]

Yes it is, but I have tried and I have a good survival rate

 

[Humblefish]

There is nothing difficult about keeping an Achilles (or any other Acanthurus tang for that matter.) So long as you provide strong flow/heavily oxygenated water in a disease free environment. You supply those two things and anyone of you can keep one! I've kept 5 Achilles over the course of 35 years, and the only one I lost was when I was trying to play "ich management". The rest were sold/traded off over the years.

 

[Armon_p]

Isn't it impossible to eradicate ick from a tank, becasue once it's a cyst it will survive for a long time without fish

 

[Humblefish]

Isn't it impossible to eradicate ick from a tank, becasue once it's a cyst it will survive for a long time without fish

72 days is the longest recorded period.

 

[Armon_p]

Where did you find that info?

 

[Keepswiming]

There is nothing difficult about keeping an Achilles (or any other Acanthurus tang for that matter.) So long as you provide strong flow/heavily oxygenated water in a disease free environment. You supply those two things and anyone of you can keep one! I've kept 5 Achilles over the course of 35 years, and the only one I lost was when I was trying to play "ich management". The rest were sold/traded off over the years.

disease free environment. yes

 

[Keepswiming]

Where did you find that info?

There info varies on the amount of time you need to go fallow to rid the ich from your display. But it can be done and you will be happy in the log run!