Ich attacking

Hello,

I'm kinda new to the saltwater hobby, and made my first huge mistake. My tank was doing well until my gf seen a powder blue that she had to have. I looked the tang over for 1/2 an hour and seen no visible signs of unhealthiness or ich. So she came home with him. 2 days later and he's covered in ich. We have a cleaner shrimp, 8 nessarius snails, 15 blue legged hermits, 3 bristle stars, 2 bubble tip anemones, 2 pecula clowns, and 2 firefish. No visible signs on any of the other fish yet. Any suggestions on how I can help this fish out w/ this problem would be a huge help. I know he wont do well with a copper tretment, and will kill invertebrates, not sure if theres anything else.



Thanks

 

Need more info. Tank size, parameters, feeding habits...

 

1. Removing and treating the tang will not help. You will just re-introduce it to the same tank with the same parasite present.

2. So common with powder blues while acclimating.

3. Feed him nori and enhance it with garlic or Selcon.

4. There is anecdotal evidence that a quality UV assist in reducing the number of symptomatic episodes. Anecdotal being the key word here.

5. Reduction of all stress: Water quality, over crowding, aggression.

Good luck to you and the fish.

 

tank

This a 55 gallon tank, water quality is reading good across the board. 50 lbs of live rock. Fish are fed twice a day. The tang is eating well, but for how long. Anemones are fed 2 to 4 times per week. What else do you need to know?

 

Keep it well fed with quality and variety of food, no stress, and hopefully you can get it to kick up its natural immunity responses....

 

+1 to all said a healthy diet is key for a fishes immune system. if you want to remove ich from you tank there is no other way than remove all fish and leave your tank fishless for at least 8 weeks. this will starve and break the reproductive cycle of the parasite. this means that before you add any new addition you are forced to quarantine otherwise you will reintroduce the parasite to your tank again bringing you back to point A.

this said if you care for your fish correctly and keep up with your water parameters your fish will be able to naturally fight off the parasite present in your tank.

 

+1 (or 2 now?), although unfortunately a 55 is much too small for an adult Powder Blue. Minimum tank size is 125 IIRC. I would personally return it back to the LFS now and hope your existing fish do not show signs of it. This will avoid either the Tang dying in your tank, which can certainly have an effect on water quality for the other tankmates, or even if it lives, it will not do "well" for long in that size tank, which can cause it, and the other fish to be stressed. Hope this did not come across in a negative way; just trying to keep your existing fish healthy and happy!

 

Well stated.If your GF cannot avoid the "I want" syndrome you will not be successful IMO.Good luck.

 

Good advice from all...but QT is another way to help you keep a healthy DT. This is esp. true of fish like tangs that get crypto at the drop of a hat.

As for a PBT in a 4' tank...well, that was already mentioned, but a big swimmer like a PBT that is known to be prone to "cabin fever" really needs an 8 or 10 foot tank that is 2' wide if it's a rectangle.

Trust me, I'm not the "tang police" by any means, but I wouldn't even try keeping a PBT in my 7' x 2' x 2' 210 gal.

 

PBT Update

Thanks for all the thoughts and comments from all. I have learned many valuable lessons from this. As for the PBT, he was returned. I did loose 2 of my present clowns to ich, everyone else seems to be doing fine. I will be waiting the 8 week period befor adding anything to the tank in order to wait the period of ls for ich and hope for the best.


Again thanks for all the responses.