Why??

am07f · Mar 23, 2010

How come i have the worst luck with fish???

I can grow any coral, keep any anemone happy, keep my water parameters perfect, but i can even keep a blue tang alive longer than a day.

I recently just finished my 120g upgrade, the corals are all open, the blue hadoni carpet and the RBTA are open, the clowns are in their bed happy, my clams are wide open...but my brand new Purple tang has like flat white dots, that throughout the day have turned to almost a pale color.

This happened last month in my 75g, blue tang, covered in ich in a day, died over night. All the other fish in the tank perfectly fine. The other fish of course are clowns, and i think if i left them out of water for 5 days they would still be ok.

Troylee · Mar 23, 2010

i had this problem with my first tank and i tried everything from fw. dips to hospo tanks etc...always died on me.... i lost track of how many tangs i went threw...
i really wanted to believe it was the way there collected which just might be the case...but my current tank i have not lost a single one and had a powder brown bust out pretty bad....the best cure i found for ich is just feed the crap out of it!!!!! you can also use selecon or garlic soaked foods to help, and the fish will do the rest.....hth...that has been my exp. tangs..... i think i always starved them since i fed once a day every other day.. now it is twice a day...

acanman · Mar 23, 2010

hyposalanity is the best way to cure ich

jaytizzle · Mar 23, 2010

Can't tell from the pics for certain but it looks like ich, right?

I feel your pain. Corals have always come easy to me but fish have been a challenge. It is for this reason that I have spent a LOT of time researching and learning so that I can, hopefully, keep fish as easily as I keep corals some day.

Very sorry to hear it but I may have a pretty easy solution for you. Ich requires a host, as we all know. If you only have clowns in the tank (any any other fish), fish them out and put them in a QT or temporary holding tank for 6-8 weeks. Treat them for the ich in this QT and allow the DT to go fallow. Then you can put them all back in and your tank will be ich free. Quarantine any new incomers and you won't have issues.

The good news is that if you can keep the tang eating he does have a good shot at survival! Good luck and keep us posted. I am fighting my own fish battles right now...

jaytizzle · Mar 23, 2010

acanman said:
hyposalanity is the best way to cure ich

Hypo or copper for sure. Can't do either on a reef tank though. If immediate treatment is needed, copper is a better choice if you can dedicate a tank as a permanent QT. If urgent action isn't needed or you can't dedicate a QT forever then go hypo.

And I know that you can technically get all of the copper out after you treat a tank, but it isn't worth the risk. I have a 29g QT that is copper treated and it will never be used for a SW reef for that reason!

acanman · Mar 23, 2010

i always use hypo cause its not hard on the fish.. copper is

acanman · Mar 23, 2010

but like jay said if you need to treat fast copper! hypo takes a good 6 to 8 weeks

am07f · Mar 23, 2010

Thats the thing, its eating, picking at the rock. It started eating the day i put it in the tank, swimming around. Looked promising, and then overnight this appeared.

Its still eating and acting the same though. I fed earlier today food soaked in garlic, im going to do it once more tonight.

Thanks guys for the advice, i just have no room for a QT. The 120 takes up my whole bedroom lol...
Anyone know if UV sterilizers help, mine was off because i just set up the tank, i turned it on today, though i dont even know if its running or doing its job.

am07f · Mar 23, 2010

Ohh and is it even ich?? Its not bumpy and round, there flat shaped and the white is like a discoloration on the scaled.

acanman · Mar 23, 2010

uv's help but will not kill it all. i just got over ick in my fowlr and i setup a hospital tank. the fish will still eat with ick until there so bad there about to die. but garlic alone wont rid it looks like it has quite abit of it

acanman · Mar 23, 2010

am07f said:
Ohh and is it even ich?? Its not bumpy and round, there flat shaped and the white is like a discoloration on the scaled.

im 90% sure thats ich. does it look like it has dandruff?

jaytizzle · Mar 23, 2010

No, UV won't help in any appreciable manner. From the pic where it is on his side fin it appears to be ich because of the look like there. Like I said, though, I can't be 100% certain from the pic.

Acan, copper is hard on some fish but perfectly suitable for the better part of 90% of the fish we keep as hobbyists. If you are into the high end fish then you know which ones aren't suited for copper. Otherwise copper is a very good treatment for the average hobbyist. DO NOT TREAT WITH COPPER WITHOUT A TEST KIT!!!

If you can't remove all of the fish then you will ALWAYS have ich in the display and every fish that you put in runs the risk of breaking out in ich. As long as you understand this and are prepared to deal with it then you are ahead of the game. CAVEAT - some research shows that fish can develop an immunity to ich but this would require you to not add a single fish over the course of a year.

Keep him eating and you have a good shot. He may break out again from time to time but as long as he eats then you are probably okay. An automatic fish feeder is worth its weight in gold. I got an eheim off the net (about $25 shipped) and it was the best money I ever spent. My fish get fed 4 times a day plus what I feed when I remember to throw some frozen or live foods in.

THE BEAUT · Mar 24, 2010

Ari, just leave it alone, if its eating and acting normal its own immune system will take care of whatever it is. I had that fish for 4 years in my tank. it should be fine, its a tough sob. that doesnt look like ich.

am07f · Mar 24, 2010

Thats what i was thinking, it doesnt look like ich. Im starting to think it might have been stress or scratches. I woke up today and everything is gone though. Still eating and swimming around.

nicks387 · Mar 25, 2010

THE BEAUT said:
Ari, just leave it alone, if its eating and acting normal its own immune system will take care of whatever it is. I had that fish for 4 years in my tank. it should be fine, its a tough sob. that doesnt look like ich.

+1 The whole thing about treating it in copper is not a good option unless the fish will no longer eat. I have had alot of excperience with this sort of thing myself and found that unless it has gotten so bad that the fish will not eat then leave it alone.
The most likely cause is that the fish is stressed and catching it and removing him again to treat with copper in a hospital tank will only further stress the fish. Copper should be a last ditch effort if the fish has stopped eating and death is next.
If you do copper and the fish gets better then you need to put it back again and stress it out again and it may get ich all over again.
Contrary to popular belief, you can't get ich out of the tank by eliminating the host. This is because Ich is dormant inside the fish and will outbreak in stressfull conditions. I have had my powder blue tang get ich after being in my tank for 4 years and after having no new fish in the tank for 2 years. How else can you explain that?
I now have a yellow tang, powder blue tang, Sohal tang, Clown Tang, adult red corris wrasse and a handfull of other so called "expert only" fish,
Once in a while my powder blue tang will get a small outbreak and it always goes away after a couple of days to a week if he is not stressed further.
Since I stopped using copper I have had a 90% succes rate with any fish that gets ich. When I used copper I would say 40%
Good luck
Nick