What’s is on my Yellow Tang?

CelestialCorals

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I’ve had my tang for 3 weeks now & it’s been fine. It’s still swimming fine, eating good, not acting unusual at all. I’m feeding it seaweed with garlic & he has a great appetite as you can see in the video. I’m suspecting this to be ich but all my other fish look fine & don’t have anything like this on them. Not sure how this could of suddenly happened or what this could be if it’s not ich. Does this look like ich, if so why don’t my other fish have it & should I just see if my tang will fight it naturally? I’m torn at to what to do now...I know this isn’t uncommon but I’m really suprised at the sudden onset. My tank temp is at 78 & my parameters are all good & where they should be as of last night. Can someone give me advice as to what I should do now?

I have another tank with mainly live rock in it & just a few zoas that I can take out, but I don’t see any sense in moving the fish over & infecting the other tank that has no fish.
 

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badluckman

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Wow, that is a lot of white spots.

I can't say for sure what it is, but here are some good threads to read.


I had maybe half of the amount of spots that you have that bloomed suddenly and in my case a properly sized UV and triple the amount of food and feedings helped push the numbers down. Now I'm scared to go back to "normal" feeding though.
 

Jay Hemdal

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I’ve had my tang for 3 weeks now & it’s been fine. It’s still swimming fine, eating good, not acting unusual at all. I’m feeding it seaweed with garlic & he has a great appetite as you can see in the video. I’m suspecting this to be ich but all my other fish look fine & don’t have anything like this on them. Not sure how this could of suddenly happened or what this could be if it’s not ich. Does this look like ich, if so why don’t my other fish have it & should I just see if my tang will fight it naturally? I’m torn at to what to do now...I know this isn’t uncommon but I’m really suprised at the sudden onset. My tank temp is at 78 & my parameters are all good & where they should be as of last night. Can someone give me advice as to what I should do now?

I have another tank with mainly live rock in it & just a few zoas that I can take out, but I don’t see any sense in moving the fish over & infecting the other tank that has no fish.
As the others have said, that is Ich, Cryptocaryon. You'll need to move the fish to a treatment tank and treat with copper right away. What other fish do you have in that tank with it? They've been exposed and almost certainly will need to be treated as well. Here is an excerpt from my upcoming book on this disease"

Cryptocaryon irritans (a.k.a. Saltwater Ich, Marine White Spot Disease)



Cause


Cryptocaryon irritans, better known as saltwater ich or marine white spot disease, is a very common ciliate protozoan that every marine aquarist encounters at some point and is probably the second most common reason people leave the hobby (the first being unexplained fish loss). Capable of killing fish within 14 to 21 days, C. irritans causes the needless loss of many aquarium fish each year due to delays in starting treatment and/or choosing the wrong medication. Handled properly in a timely manner, ich should never cause fish loss.



Susceptibility varies

Not all species of fish are infected by Cryptocaryon to the same degree. Sharks and rays seem to be immune, and moray eels rarely contract it. However, powder blue and Achilles tangs are so prone to developing ich, that many aquarists simply avoid buying them.



Life cycle

The life cycle of this parasite is fairly straightforward:

The stage that attaches to the skin of the fish is known as the trophont.

After feeding on the fish’s tissue for some time, the trophont drops off and becomes a tomont that exists in the substrate.

The tomont begins to divide and releases tiny, free-swimming tomites (also called theronts). One tomont can produce about 250 tomites.

The free-swimming tomites seek out a fish to attach to. Once they find and attach to a host fish, they mature into trophonts. It is this stage that causes problems in aquariums.

The life cycle takes around six days at tropical temperatures. This could result in one parasite becoming 15 million in just three weeks. Because not all tomites are successful in finding a host fish, the parasite typically increases at a rate of about 10 times per week.



Propagule pressure and resistance

The ease with which Cryptocaryon infections proceed in an aquarium is influenced by both propagule pressure and resistance. The term “propagule pressure” simply refers to the number of tomites present. If the propagule pressure is low, there are relatively few tomites present and the chances of them landing on a suitable host are very low. Thus, the infection does not reach the exponential growth phase.



Although not scientifically proven, it appears that fish that have survived a Cryptocaryon infection develop some resistance and are less likely to develop the disease in the future. Likewise, a fish that is in poor overall health, or has suffered an environmental stress, may have a lowered resistance and will be more likely to develop the disease.



Remember however, that propagule pressure is itself the most common stressor that lowers a fish’s resistance to this disease. That is, if there are hundreds of tomites swarming around an aquarium, even the least-stressed fish will become infected.



Symptoms

As one of its common names implies, the very first symptom of Cryptocaryon is the appearance of tiny white dots, about the size of a grain of table salt, on the skin and fins of just one or two of the fish in the aquarium. Beginning aquarists often miss this early symptom or mistake it for air bubbles.



At this point, the life cycle of the parasites is “in sync.” That is, they tend to drop off and form tomonts at the same time, giving aquarists false hope that the fish have “cured themselves” or, worse yet, that an incorrect treatment is actually working. Typically, four to six days later, many more white spots suddenly reappear on the fish. Then, the parasites begin to become out of sync with one another and the fish begins to carry the white spots (trophonts) continually, with their numbers increasing each day.



Eventually, the infected fish begin to show systemic symptoms: rapid breathing, cloudy eyes, pale color, and tattered fins. In advanced cases, the white spots coalesce into patches. At this point, many people would have a difficult time even diagnosing the problem as ich.



Diagnosis

Advanced aquarists learn to recognize ich very easily, but looking at a skin scrape under a microscope is the surest way to make a positive identification. Fish do develop benign white spots that can resemble ich, so the best way to differentiate between these is to make a quick sketch of where the spots are on the fish’s body. If the spots seem to disappear and then reappear elsewhere, the problem is likely ich. On the other hand, if the spots remain constant in number and location, it is likely that the problem is something less serious, such as Lymphocystis or minor skin lesions.



Treatments



Copper

The standard treatment for an active Cryptocaryon infection is ionic copper at 0.20 mg/l for 14 days. The proper dose is maintained by careful testing twice a day and adding enough copper solution to bring the concentration back to the proper level.



Hobbyist copper test kits are difficult to read, so public aquarists use a device called a spectrophotometer that gives much more accurate test results. Due to the difficulty in dosing, many home aquarists turn to patented organically chelated copper cures. These have a wider margin of error and often do not require testing as they are an “add-once” type of treatment. However, they are a bit slower to cure the fish and may not act quickly enough if the infection is at an advanced state. Public aquarists with the ability to measure copper accurately with a spectrophotometer will find that ionic copper is the best choice.



Chloroquine

This drug is less widely available than copper but does have some potential as a medication for ich. Dosed at 10 mg/l, it serves as a preventative for all protozoan diseases. Active infections may require a dose of 15 mg/l. Treatment length varies but is generally 14 to 30 days.



Formalin

Formalin dosed at a daily rate of 25 mg/l is an old-fashioned treatment for Cryptocaryon, and better treatments are now available. Formalin does have a use as a dip—in this case, placing the ill fish in 166 mg/l of formalin (37% formaldehyde gas in water) for 45 minutes with good aeration. This is a stop-gap method, since moving the fish back to the original aquarium would leave it open to reinfection. It is a useful prelude to treatment in cases where the fish may have flukes at the same time.



Freshwater dips

Long touted as an easy cure for ich, use of a five-minute freshwater dip should be relegated to a diagnostic tool (as mentioned elsewhere in this book). The popularity of this method stems from the ease of performing it, not its overall effectiveness.



Hyposalinity

Popular many years ago, hyposalinity (low salt level) treatments are less popular nowadays. These treatments often fail because aquarists are unwilling to reduce the specific gravity as low as it really needs to go (between 1.010 and 1.012 specific gravity units). Some fish cannot tolerate this low of a salt level. This treatment is very slow to cure an active infection and so is perhaps better suited as a quarantine method. The biggest risk with using a hyposalinity treatment is that another protozoan, Uronema, thrives in low-salinity water and is much more difficult to treat than Cryptocaryon.



“Tank chasing” method

A mostly theoretical method for treating Cryptocaryon infections takes advantage of the life cycle of the organism—moving the infected fish to a new aquarium at the point where the tomonts are produced, potentially breaking the life cycle. In real-world applications, multiple tank moves are required because, as mentioned above, the ich parasites are rarely in perfect synchronicity.



Hyper-temperature

For many years, raising the water temperature was given as one component for treating Cryptocaryon. The theory was that since the medications are most effective against the small tomite stage, raising the water temperature would speed up the life cycle and get the parasite to that stage sooner. This is a complete fallacy. Cryptocaryon actually prefers warmer temperatures, making it more difficult to treat at higher temperatures. In addition, Cryptocaryon can impair the fish’s ability to extract oxygen from the water. Water at higher temperatures has less of an ability to dissolve oxygen in it, lowering the oxygen concentration, exacerbating the problem.



Fallow tank

In some cases, the invertebrate population of an aquarium is highly valuable, so no treatment is made to the display tank. The fish are either lost, or moved to a quarantine tank for treatment. The question then arises – “how long does Cryptocaryon remain infective in an aquarium when host fish are not present?” As early study from Japan seemed to indicate this time to be around 35 days. However, aquarists have seen this time is not long enough to clear infections in many cases. Current thought is that a tank must remain fallow (fishless) for at least 75 days before fish can safely be returned to the aquarium.



“Snake oil”

Treatments for Cryptocaryon always require that the fish be isolated from invertebrates. Ich medications that are sold as being “safe” for use with invertebrates either don’t work or are actually not very safe for invertebrates. The reason that there are so many of these “snake oil” products on the market is that too many home aquarists will try anything that claims to cure ich without having to isolate the fish from the invertebrates. If a manufacturer refuses to divulge the active ingredient for their medication, you should NEVER add it to your aquarium.
 
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CelestialCorals

CelestialCorals

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Thank you all for the reply’s. So being that I have so much in my tank & my other fish aren’t infected what do I do in this situation? For one it’s going to be seriously hard to catch my tang with all my rock, coral & inverts, also if the parasites are in my tank already, is removing the tang going to help? Do I need to dose the tank or if the tang doesn’t make it will this resolve the problem since it didn’t stick to any of my other fish? I just don’t understand why suddenly after 3 wks nothing has shown up until now. I’m leaving out of state tonight also for a week, the timing is horrible & my daughter who’s handling my tank feedings can’t handle treating my tank.
 

Skynyrd Fish

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I’m sorry you are having this issue. I would think about getting a fish trap and catching the tang and moving to a qt. The other fish may or may not be able to fight this off. It has been done before. Low stress on the fish, good water quality and quality food will help. Keep an eye on the other fish. I would not put the tang back in that tank for at least 12 weeks from the last sign of ich. I recommend copper power as I have had good luck with it. Good luck and happy thanksgiving.
 
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CelestialCorals

CelestialCorals

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Here’s the latest video of my tang yesterday...he didn’t have all of those spots all over anymore, but some white looking patches. He’s still doing great & eating good. I added extra garlic soakings to the feedings for all of my fish. I don’t want to put a treatment into my tank & risk the health of my coral, I just have way too much to lose. Crossing my fingers that everything works out. I also added a cleaner wrasse to my tank yesterday as well which was recommended by my LFS for the parasites.
 

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Willbiker

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Beautiful tank BTW!

I bought a regal tang and didn't QT it which brought ich in. You can feed to build strong immune systems but no matter what people say, it will eventually strike. Get a QT tank, move in all fish, treat the QT tank with cupramine for 30 days and leave your display tank fallow for 75 to 80 days. This starves the parasite and is the only way to get rid of it.

Drastic measure but It worked for me and I feel assured now that its gone for good. I now QT everything! I've learnt my lesson.
 

gentlefish

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But that is expected that the white spots fall off, to replicate on the bottom of the tank, before returning in another wave. ( no I can’t see the videos).
 

Reeferman47

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Yeah it looks like a bad case of the white spot disease (aka ich). I would try to put him into quarantine and try to dose some cupramine. Personally I think of a freshwater bath as a last resort way of solving these problems because whenever I do it the fish always never survives it. If you need any more help or assistance you can just ask me on the thread. I'll leave the link here. If you don't have an amazon account you could make one or visit your LFS for some more info.



I really do hope that this helps you out.

-Reeferman47
 

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