Heart broken My blue hippo just died what is your experience with blue hippo?

I bought my hippo very small(.75in) and was the first fish I QT'd. I treated it with cupramine and water changes for the ammonia. I posted this in your other thread, but I QT'd in a 29 and still had problems with ammonia, so the 10 you were using was almost hopeless. My hippo is now in my DT and doing great.

 

i currently have a hippo tang that had a spell of ich. Sad to say everytime it is spooked or i mess with my tank he breaks out with ich again. good thing is i did research while this is common with the hippo tangs in most cases it will only stay with the tang and not affect the other fish in the tank. i left my tang in my DT and have not had any issues other than with the tang itself. Also after research i found it more harmful to move a hippo tang while it is already broke out with ich in most cases it will go away feed it algae sheets and garlic it will clear in a few days. if you move the tang you raise the chances of it dieing from the stress.

 

+1

You don't want to stress a fish that's already infected with Ich. If you're not medicating, I find it easy to just keep it eating. Although there's a chance that it still wont make it.

 

When I bought mine, I got him pretty small.. about the size of a quarter or maybe even smaller.

I acclimated him and dropped him in the tank shortly after that. A day or two went by and he was behaving alright, but ick started to show. At first, I went to the store where they sold me "Kick-Ick" and I treated the whole tank as per the directions on the bottle, but ick did not completely disappear and my water was looking so nasty that I could not take it any longer, so I stopped the treatment and did several water changes within a week. After that, I just made sure he was eating well and soaked his food in garlic x-treme to entice him to pig out, which he did, and a week and a half afterward, he was ick free and behaving as silly as any good 'ol hippo tang would do when this young.

In essence, I really like my hippo tang. Unfortunately I only have about 1 more year or so with him before I need to take him back to the store, since he will grow too big for my 55. I knew this when I bought him though, but I wanted to raise him and I have, knowing that I'll have to let go of him when he's big enough... kind of like when your kids go to college ... you have to let go.

I'm sorry yours did not make it. I would really just watch them at the store and make sure they look very well. Even if he gets ick, as long as your water parameters are good, he'll overcome this disease in a little bit. Just pay attention to him and make sure he eats.

Good luck with your next one, were you to choose to give it another go.

- Mag.

PS: None of my other fish got ick while or after the hippo had it. And never had it after the first time. The hippo tang was my one and only encounter with ick.

 

tangs are very sensitive, my hippo once got ick from one of my family members tapping on the glass

 

How long was the sponge in your DT? The longer you can have it in there, the better.

Yes, it appears that you tried to do everything right. Next time, be prepared to do lots of little water changes on the QT tank. Even if you got a little bigger tank, you should still do water changes because as you have learned the ammonia can build up rather quickly.

Also, did you have any kind of water circulation in the QT? A powerhead or something? This won't stop the ammonia from building up, but you do need to have the water moving for aeration.

Hippo tangs are VERY prone to ich! As are most tangs in general, but I think the hippos are super sensitive. Also soak the food in garlic. This will help stimulate their appetitie. Garlic is not a cure for ich, but if the fish is eating, chances are better that it can fight it off on its own.

My experience with my little 1" hippo: Watched very closely at LFS - no signs of ich. He was the first fish in the tank and has never displayed any symptoms.

 

I have one in my 40 breeder. The acclimation from the ocean to an aquarium is the challenge. Once I first purchased the fish, he developed ick. He was feeding fine so there was no reason to quarantine. I've had the fish for 7 months now and I've had no issues since. I'll soon be moving him to the 150. Since he's already acclimated to an aquarium, the transition should be just fine.

 

So your blue hippo got ich in your DT but did not spread ich to your other fish?
I really appreciate your help guys I am still trying to figure out if I want to try again.

 

When i got my Blue Hippo i drip acum her for about 45 mins and put in my DT she did scare the crap out of me though when i put her in the dt. she was swimming around in the acum pail then when i put her in the DT she just sank and laid on the bottom first thing to cross my mind was WTF realy what did i do wrong? by the time i rummaged around and found my net she was up swimming like nothing happened. had her for about 6 months with no problems then for some unknown reason she jumped out of the tank and i didnt find her till the next day.

 

Yeh tangs in general like to "play dead" if they are scared...