treating for ich on tang

[wisdom695]

does anyone have anything that could help me treat my blu hippo tang i really dont want to lose him???? locally if possible loveland ft collins area??

[mdrumm]

how bad is it? my blues get ich occasstionally and it goes away.

[wisdom695]

its not that bad but i just dont want to lose him . what should i do to treat him because he is in my reef ?

[mdrumm]

you can do garlic. Other than that I would wait it out. If it gets worse then you will have to quarantine him.

[Sk8r]

It can get lethally worse very fast, if it gets into the gills where it doesn't show. If he were mine, I'd pull him to quarantine immediately along with all other fish and start hyposalinity, slow decline to 1.017 sg. Leave main tank fishless for 8 weeks. Garlic is a help, but this species is very susceptible to ich and has a huge oxygen requirement, so if it gets to the gills, it's doubly bad.

[wisdom695]

i dont have a q tank know anyone with one that i could get ?

[Zooid]

Aren't cleaner shrimp helpful in controlling ich?

[roguemonk]

In my experience, garlic works wonders when it's not advanced (I've never yet had to treat an advanced case).

Sk8r's advice is sound, but the disruption and available resources may make that approach less viable (catching a hippo tang with available hiding places is no easy trick, and that's just one fish). If you dose heavily with garlic and see improvements in a day or two you might get away with it. But those parasites will be around for weeks, so you will have to keep treating with garlic and probably also vitamin supplements since your only defense will be healthy immune systems until all the parasites are dead or dormant (I seem to recall they have an encysted state so they can come back later, but I may be confusing them with another organism).

But to be sure, the quarantine and hyposalinity is the approach that will give you more chance for success and mitigation of losses.

If you use garlic in the future once this outbreak is over, and keep other conditions good, you shouldn't have a problem again.

Brad

[roguemonk]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9435778#post9435778 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Zooid
Aren't cleaner shrimp helpful in controlling ich?

There are anecdotes out there that suggest they may eat the parasites, but I do not believe that a cleaner can prevent or reverse an infestation by itself.

Not a bad accessory, though. Every little bit helps.

Thanks,

Brad

[jaw969]

My tang has had ich in the past. As soon as I caught him and put him in quaratine he was great, but when I put him back in the main tank again he would get it again.

My fireshrimp actually cleaned him all up.

Both of my shrimps rock when it comes to cleaning the fish. It's great to watch the fish swim right up to them, sit there while the shrimps go to town.

[wisdom695]

keep it coming i love the help

[LooseHip]

I have a 29 gal acrylic tank just sitting in my garage that you could use.. Only problem is I am in northglenn!

[diesel_ftc]

i have a 29 gallon eclipse with built in light i will sell for 30.00 this could be a good QT tank

[adova]

There is a ich treatment that is reef safe - I have heard mixed opinions about its success, but it is what I would use if I ever got ich in the main tank (I have yet to try it so far). I have seen at least one version at Todds Fish. Search for "ich" at marine Depot and you will see Ruby Reef which is the one that I have heard best results from - best results obtained by following instructions exactly....

Otherwise you MUST remove all fish from the main tank and treat all fish in quarantine. There you can use Hyposalinity (best - I have done this and have had great success) or copper.

Sk8r - I am pretty sure the sg is 1.009 for hypo from all of the research I have done....

[adova]

mdrumm - You may see it "go away" but it does not really - it just enters a new stage of the cycle where is ferments in the sand bed and rocks. The cycle is about 6 weeks (I have also heard 8), where the parasites show up for about 2 on the fish.

Once you have ich in a tank, you have it forever till the tank is fishless for about the 8 week period that Sk8r was referring to. This is due to the fact that the parasite requries a fish host and will die off after the cycle completes without a new host to attach to.

[Rockhoppers]

Hippo tangs tend to get little burts of ick every once in a while. If there are more than just a couple of dots on the fish and the fish is constantly flashing(scratching itself on the rocks and substrate) you are going to want to quarantine it and I would recommend hyposalinity. I had really good success treating my hippo with hyposalinity before I put it in my main tank. It broke out while it was still in my QT. I agree with adova hypo is 1.009 and has to be maintained for at least 4 weeks preferably 6 weeks. Ph has to be monitored closely and salinity also has to be monitored closely during this period because if the salinity rises during this period you will have to start all over again.Check out this link.http://www.petsforum.com/personal/trevor-jones/hyposalinity.html (http://)

[mdrumm]

mdrumm - You may see it "go away" but it does not really - it just enters a new stage of the cycle where is ferments in the sand bed and rocks. The cycle is about 6 weeks (I have also heard 8), where the parasites show up for about 2 on the fish.

Shawn,

I have read many, many articles on Ich. is it always there? Is it introduced? I have had my hippos for about 7 months. They are growing, eating and swimming fine. they have had ich about 2 times. I have read that ich is like a cold. Healthy fish can take care of it on their own. Until something changes, I am going to keep on doing what I have been doing.

[cabby]

Kick Ick is a joke. A total waste of money. I have a 150 treatment bottle if you want it. I Put my angel/Tang/Butterfly tank in hypo and am on 4th week. No Ich thus far. 2 more weeks. Then re-seed and tank will be back to norm. I do not suggest hypo on display tank but with minimal corals you can move them into a qt. I just cannot see moving 8 large expensive fish into a 30 gal QT. Hypo in display is no big deal. You may have Amonia spike but it does not last long. LR comes right back with re-seed. Just some FYI. Oh and you must be at 1.009 for 6 weeks.
My Angels started coming down with secondary Bac. Infections due to the Ich. It will kill them in one way or another. I have tried it all. There are is no easy way out unlerss the fish can build immunity but with the guys I have , no way.
Cabby

[adova]

Ich is definely introduced - it is a parasite, but once introduced, it is does not go away without either treatment or removal of fish. But justbecause you have ich does not mean that your fish will die - many will not show signs and a healthy fish can survive the parsite during the hosting stage many times.

The concept of the kick ich and other such products is that it kills the parasite during the free swimming stage of the cycle - in theory it should be successful, but as you have heard from cabby, it is not very popular.

The real trick to a successful treatment is moving your fish to the QT - catching 6+ fish in a rock dense aquarium is a day long job for many. Then you must have the patience to wait out the QT period....

Hypo will be adverse to most inverts and corals from what I have read, so most people would not want to hypo their main displays....

Copper is the other most common teatment, but dosing it must be done carefully. There are less toxic versions, but oyu still need to be careful. Tangs are famous for having an adverse reaction to copper. It is also very common to see an LFS use copper to treat tanks by default for their fish.

[adova]

Oh - and in case you try the hypo - you must lower it and raise it VERY slowly - it takes about a week or more to get it to each level (1.009 and bacj to 1.025 or so) with water changes - so the 8 week QT is really about 10 - 11 weeks....

[ricklee]

I have good luck with frozen Ocean Nutrition, Jack Wattley Community Health Food with Garlic. Its made for Discus I feed it 2 times a week and have no problems with ich. Awhile back I ran out and my Hippo got ich after a couple of weeks. Liquid Kingdom ordered some in and I started feeding it again and have had no problems.

[chadscharf]

adova is absolutely correct. Ich has a wonderful reproduction cycle that can last 1 to 2 weeks but has also been reported up to 8 weeks. My hippo had gotten it shortly after introducing a new rock to the main display (assuming the spawning stage of the ich parasite was almost complete to the free-swimming stage).

I QT'd all my fish, except for the mandarin (whom have a natural immunity to the parasite and the parasite seems to ignore them) for 5 weeks at which point my wife and kids nagging to put the poor fishys back in the main tank finally got to me. I treated with Rid-Ich very carefully performing 30% water changes in the QT with water from the main display every day. I did nothing to the main display other than water changes.

Since I've re-introduced my fish back into the main tank there has been no sign of ich. It truly is a parasite and requires a fish host to survive. The life-cycle can be simplified as follows:

1. Free Swimming Stage (little ich bastards float around until they can attach to a fish host)
2. Hosting Stage (found a host, let's eat!)
3. I'm full stage (had all I can eat, let's drop off and do it in the sand)
4. Dormant stage (after-smoke and relax in the sand for a couple of weeks)
5. Spawning Stage (wow, that's a lot of babies)
6. Free Swimming Stage all over again.

If you fail to wait out all of these possible cycles/stages that the ich is in, you will get it again, garunteed.

[emoutz]

How do you dose garlic ?

[roguemonk]

Pure garlic extract. You can put a few drops in food and let it soak in before feeding, and you can also dose the tank at the rate of one drop per ten gallons.

Thanks,

Brad

[emoutz]

Cool. Thanks.

Just got my first tang (yellow) yesterday and I want to keep the little sucker healthy. After seeing him swim around, I'm convinced that these fish probably need a tank twice the size of what I have (90). If he lives for a few years, I'm sure he will get one!