Purple tang - stress spots/ich/something else

[Jay Hemdal Verified Community Expert]

I think it finned out really quick. It was eating very well before the flashing started.

I've been keeping a close eye on the salinity, so highly dount it.

The flashing has stopped completely though.

Ammonia is reading 0.05 on seachem badge. But not sure how much I trust it. Been like that even after 80% waterchange.

I could perhaps put it in water from main tank where other fish are thriving?

I wouldn't move it at this point.

I'm thinking this may be Amyloodinium, velvet. Copper is the best treatment for that, but that doesn't work fast enough to save the fish once they begin showing more severe symptoms.

If you want to try a risky, "Hail Mary" treatment against velvet, you could dose it with hydrogen peroxide at 75 ppm for 30 minutes. If that provides temporary relief, then you might have time to start copper. Be aware that this treatment could very well kill the fish at this point. By my calculation, you would add 9.5 milliliters or 3% household peroxide to a gallon of tank water and hold the fish in it for 30 minutes.

 

[loops123]

Just an update here, I wasn't in the position to go the Hail Mary route.
Unfortunately died soon after.

I checked in with LFS, and there were no other reports of the same batch with similar issues.
They offered me another one at a discounted price.

I've created a new thread to explore the options of treating prophylactically this time around
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/to-treat-prophylactically-or-not.1147519/
Thanks for all the help.

 

[mcarroll]

With no pre-treatment and no protections on the tank, this is a risk. And historically this is a particularly risky fish. In a healthy, mature, low-stress tank, you might get away with it. A new tank is very unstable though, so disease tends to be more likely and when outbreaks do happen they are more intense.

Whether you pretreat with meds or not, I would consider running UV and micron filtration on the display while you are still adding new fish. After you're done adding new fish and things have stabilized for at least a few months they should no longer be necessary. Same can be run on QT before or after meds (ie during observation) to keep things from getting out of control if the fish do have an outbreak of something. (UV probably isn't compatible with some meds. Micron should be compaible with everything.)

Good luck!