purple tang has ich now :(

mystery_reef · #1 06/09/2007, 06:09 PM

i am starting this thread because today i noticed my purple tang which i have had for about 7 months now scratching himself against the rocks. he has several ich spots. all of the other fish look fine. i feed them all a very good variety of foods and greens. i have 3 green chrom. a clarki clown, metallic rabbit, a scotts fairy, lineatus and labouti fairy wrasses. those are the only fish. all in a 125 reef that has been running for over 1and1/2 years now with most of the stuff from smaller tanks. i dont know why but i have never in my 5 years in the hobby had success with any tangs until this purple which now has some ich. not sure why or what to do everything is perfect, parameters, corals, etc... it would be impossible to catch him for a freshwater dip and probably cause more stress than good. not sure whats up with him but i dont want him to die or for it to spread to the other fish especially the very expensive fairy wrasse. any advice???

cooltankmate · #2 06/09/2007, 08:53 PM

feed him more often to let him fight for the ich. it worked for me. if it doesn't help....then you need to catch him and treat with copper or hypo

fishyvet · #3 06/09/2007, 09:45 PM

you have ich in your display tank

If you catch the tang and treat him in QT or with dips, when he goes back in your tank he will become infected again. If you don't want ich in your tank, all of the fish need to come out and the tank needs to sit fishless (fallow) for 6-8 weeks while the fish go through hypo or copper to eliminate the parasites on them. This is the only way to rid your system of the parasite and make sure the tang doesn't die or that the ich spreads to other fish.

I would guess you have had ich in your tank for quite some time and something has happened which has stressed the tang thus lowering his immunity to the parasite and now he is showing clinical signs of disease. I keep several tangs and only my powder blue occasionally shows a few ich spots. I run a lot of UV on my system and I believe that it helps keep the parasite burden reduced in my tank. I have ich in my tank but its not much of an issue to my fish.

The best thing to do is to rid your system of ich, but a lot of time it is not practical to QT and treat all of the fish. You can try beefing up the diet, UV, cleaner shrimp/fish, or any of those other things people have anecdotally "cured" their ich with but there is only one definitive solution. Best of luck!

A sea K · #4 06/09/2007, 10:49 PM

I added all 3 of my tangs at once without QT and sure enough the Hippo had Ich show up right away. I did everything I could to get him eating as soon as possible. In the next few days the other tangs were showing spots as well. I just kept a good varied diet going and there are no more signs other than an isolated spec on the Hippo on occasion.
Water quality and diet are very important. You can live with it in your tank but its sorta like a time bomb waiting for something to lower the fishes resistance then BOOM. I'll just do my best to maintain good WQ.
Some recent reading I found suggested if no new fish are added the tank could possibly become Ich free (has something to do with inbreeding and the specifiec strain present in the tank dying off). This requires at least a year without any new additions.

happyface888 · #5 06/09/2007, 10:57 PM

Hmm A Sea K I think that might be true that ich goes bye bye for a while than shows up when you add some new fish. I had my tank for 2years and there would be ich here and there but it would be pretty mild and would go away. Recently I added a baby clown trigger straight into the tank, and it devolped some ich the next day my hippo tang was covered with ich. I havent had ich for along long time. But its pretty bad right now but my fishes are eatting especailly the hippo its a monster. All fishes have some on them and are scratching its week 2 of ich right now. Going to change more water and get more food varieties to feed my fishes. Hey sea what are you feeding your tangs? currently im using new life spectrum w/ garlic additive, formula two, fresh sea food and looking for cyclop eeze right now and also I ordered Vita chem.wish me luck

happyface888 · #6 06/10/2007, 12:25 AM

I found some info on not adding new fish in a tank the ich would age and die.

"Burgess and Matthews (1994) were attempting to maintain a viable population of C. irritans which could be used in later studies. To maintain the parasite populations, they needed host fish in order for the trophonts to feed and continue the life cycle. Each host fish was only used once in a process of serial transition such that none of the hosts would die or develop an immunity. While the procedure worked very well and enabled them to maintain populations for some time, the viability of the populations decreased with time and none of the 7 isolates they used survived more than 34 cycles, around 10 to 11 months. They suggest this is due to senescence and aging in cell lines is well recognised in Ciliophora.

The presence of aging cell lines in C. irritans suggests that an aquarium that has been running for longer than 12 months without any additions is unlikely to have any surviving "Ich" parasites, yet another exception to "Ich" always being present. "

http://www.petsforum.com/personal/tr...marineich.html

Could someoen clarify this quote
"As discussed above, C. irritans spends very little time in the water column. After dropping off the host fish, trophonts head straight to the substrate to reproduce. This may take as little as 30 minutes but could extend to 24 hours (Cheung et al., 1979). Burgess and Matthews (1994b) found that significantly more trophonts left their host during darkness while fish are resting. This would greatly decrease the chances of trophonts being swept away from the substrate. These two factors combined almost rule out the possibility of trophonts being collected with natural seawater.

Excystment of theronts from tomonts also happens at night (Burgess and Matthews (1994b) and as theronts are only viable for a few hours, the chances of collecting theronts is low and those collected will most likely die before use in an aquarium. "

So when fish sleeps the ich falls off ? so what if I covered up the tank and blacked it out with no light, Im guessing they might want to sleep but it might not be correct.

fishyvet · #7 06/10/2007, 12:56 AM

Apparently, all your tang needs to do is survive with ich for 10-11 months and the ich will die on its own

While this is good info for established systems, it doesn't really apply to ich outbreaks where fish may succumb to the disease before the ich replicates itself into oblivion.

Quote:

Originally posted by happyface888

Could someoen clarify this quote
"As discussed above, C. irritans spends very little time in the water column. After dropping off the host fish, trophonts head straight to the substrate to reproduce. This may take as little as 30 minutes but could extend to 24 hours (Cheung et al., 1979). Burgess and Matthews (1994b) found that significantly more trophonts left their host during darkness while fish are resting. This would greatly decrease the chances of trophonts being swept away from the substrate. These two factors combined almost rule out the possibility of trophonts being collected with natural seawater.

Excystment of theronts from tomonts also happens at night (Burgess and Matthews (1994b) and as theronts are only viable for a few hours, the chances of collecting theronts is low and those collected will most likely die before use in an aquarium. "

So when fish sleeps the ich falls off ? so what if I covered up the tank and blacked it out with no light, Im guessing they might want to sleep but it might not be correct.

I don't understand what you are trying to do. Reading the quote, I gather that more ich leaves the fish when they are resting/still but not all of the parasites drop off.

Could you be more specific as to what your idea is?

happyface888 · #8 06/10/2007, 01:37 AM

sorry fishyvet I got that quote from this webpage
http://www.petsforum.com/personal/t.../marineich.html
its near the end sorry I cant really explain it.

A sea K · #9 06/10/2007, 04:34 PM

happyface,
With stress being somewhat of a trigger for Ich I'm not sure I would do a WC. The less stress the better for now.
Your feeding habits look pretty good, not sure mine will be of any improvement but here goes-
I feed about a 4X4 square of nori daily and what follows
Monday, Hikari enriched brine/Cyclopeeze soaked in Selcon.
Tues, Spectrum pellets.
Wed, PE mysis soaked in Zoe.
Thurs, ON spirulina flake soaked in Garlic extreme.
Fri, Hikari enriched brine/Cyclopeeze soaked in Selcon
Sat, Formula 1 soaked in Zoe
Sun, No food, Nori only(sometimes I feel sorry and will give them a little spectrum)

I wish you and mystery_reef the best of luck through this ordeal.
Chris

mystery_reef · #10 06/10/2007, 05:58 PM

thanks to all for all the replies. about the best thing i could do i think would be to enrich the diet a little more than it already is, keep the stress low, and ride it out and hopefully it will eventually die. thanks again.

kypatriot · #11 06/10/2007, 06:37 PM

I've successfully gotten rid of ich several times (in QT) with a diatom filter. It sucks out the swimming infective stage, essentially lowering the parasite load enough that the fish's immune system can fight it off better. UV is basically the same thing, but diatom is cheaper and easier to use for short bursts.

(Kinda like bacteriostatic antibiotics, which don't kill the bacteria already there, but keep it from growing, long enough for your immune system to fight off what's there)

Philwd · #12 06/10/2007, 10:04 PM

Actually ich does not die out. That was based on one paper. Seems to have not been replicated. It may have been a particular strain. There is much more experience with ich lasting years.

link

Here's the thread where the ich line dying out is discussed.

But Steven Pro later posts about this paper disputing the original researchers claim. Here the strain lived for over 2 years.

Yoshinaga, T. & H.W. Dickerson. 1994. "Laboratory Propagation of Cryptocaryon irritans on a Saltwater-Adapted Poecilia Hybrid, the Black Molly" Journal of Aquatic Animal Health 6:197-201, 1994.

Paul B. had ich live in his tank about 30 yrs. It can go subclinical. You can live with ich for years. But if you have a stress event like temp spike, tank move you will very likely get a massive ich outbreak.

The fact that ich falls off at nght is actually rather insidious. Fish tend to sleep in the same spot each night. It means when the theronts hatch the fish is likely to be right there sleeping to get re-infected.

Paul B · #13 06/14/2007, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Paul B. had ich live in his tank about 30 yrs. It can go subclinical. You can live with ich for years. But if you have a stress event like temp spike, tank move you will very likely get a massive ich outbreak.

This is true, but don't necessarilly do what I do. It is better to quarantine and not have ich in your tank. Ich has always been in my tank, I know because when a fish is near death from either old age or an accident they get ich. I have a hippo tang that every once in a while is covered to such an extent I am sure he will be dead in the morning. He seems to be getting much better and I rarely ever see ich on him anymore. At least in the last month or so.
A couple of months ago I had a tank accident which severly stressed the fish. Due to this the fish that were ich free for all the years they were in the tank came down with ich. Some of my fish were ich free for 10, 12 and 18 years.
I run my tank differently than most people but for some reason ich is not a large concern for me. Most tanks do not run like this and if ich is in your system you will probably lose all of your fish.
My tank is an experiment and almost all of my fish are in breeding condition, fish in that condition have a "partial immunity" to ich.
This is only my opinion and I do not recommend anyone to run their tank as I do but I do recommend that people keep their fish in breeding condition which will go a long way to keeping them alive. If your fish are not building nests or exhibiting breeding behavior or dying before ten years then they are not as healthy as you believe. Their scales should shine like velvet with no abrasions and their colors should be vibrant, not the way they look in the store. Fish can only get into this shape by getting the correct food, not just flakes and pellets, they need fresh food like live black worms, fresh clams etc. and they need it every day. When I used to breed damsels in the seventees all I had to do was to feed live worms for two weeks and the fish would start to lay eggs. They would also look much different than fish on a typical fish diet of commercially prepared fish food.
I also give vitamins especially vitamin "A". Cod liver oil is mostly vitamin A. Fish in the sea eat mostly other fish. A large part of a fish is his liver and his liver is mostly vitamin A. Thats where Vitamin A comes from that you buy in a drug store. Our fish diet is severly limited in this vitamin and I believe they need it. It is an oil and it stinks. I put a drop in a little water, shake it up and since the oil floats I put a few flakes of food or freeze dried food in. The food soake up the oil and I feed it to the fish. It also leaves a small oil slick on the water but this will leave in a few minutes.
Have a great ich free day.
Paul