white spots on my purple tang

[hazel]

Dear experts,

I have a 400 lit reef tank for 6 months. I introduced a purple tang 4 weeks ago and it developed many white spots just a few days afterwards. I observed it and all along it has been eating well and appeared not in stress.

Today, I isolate it in a plastic fish trap. What should I do next?
1.Continue observation.
2.Put it in fresh water for 5 to 10 minuts each day until full recovery.
3.Put it in copper cotaining quaratine tank until recovery, say 4 to 6 weeks.

Another question, is there any truely reef safe white spot medicine? what is in it? I have heard about something called Ich-xtinguisher in USA. Does it work?

Thanks a lot!

[JohnL]

Hi Hazel,

<img src="http://www.reefcentral.com/images/welcome.gif"><br><b><i><big><big>To Reef Central</b></i></big></big>

Let me point you to our some past threads about how to treat marine ich (http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27454).

[FMarini]

The answer is
C... eerrrr #3

If you want a sure fire way to treat ich(ick) its copper and hyposalinity...these are guaranteed cures. If you already have the fish in a quarantine tank then copper would be MY first choice. I like using (cupramine) follow the manufacturers directions and monitor for correct copper levels. The ich should disappear in 3 days and then treat for an additional 7.

Do you have many other fish in this reef? if so do they also have ich?

Freshwater dips are very(very) stressful on fish, I would recommend skipping this, and use only as a last resort. W/ Some diseases FW dips are recommended...Not here.
AS far as reef-safe medications for ICH...Good question. Others have reported to us that products like "kick-ich', ich-xtinguisher, etc have worked for them. I have No personal proof of it working. So I can't judge either way. Because inverts are so sensitive, I would suggest to you that many reef-safe meds have some toxicity on some of your inverts..question is whether you want to experiment. Do a search for the reef safe ich treatments.
hope this helps
frank

[hazel]

Thanks for the reply.

I have tried fresh water dip yesterday. I put my purple tang into FW for 3minutes. It is of the same temp as my display tank. It turns pale, breathing very very fast. Treatment was terminated. It took the fish a whole night to breath as before. I will NEVER do fresh water dip again!

I have a 70 litres tank not in use, and will use copper for treatment. In Hong Kong, there is a medicine called Coppersafe from USA, is it the one you used for treatment? I will not use any sand or rocks but just some mechanical filtration, and replace 10% of the water from display tank every other day, is it enough to handle the nitrogen wastes? Which copper test kit do you use to monitor the Cu concentration?

Thanks for your help!

[hazel]

To Moderator

There are a few damsels, 2 tomato clown, 1 flame angel, 1 flameback angel and 1 yellow tang. All are healthy and have been in the tank for 5 months. There was a initial outbreak of ich during break-in period. i just let nature heals and it worked.