tangs

well to answer I have a well stocked tank, as follows;

the aforementioned tangs and-

3 true percula clown fish

1 clarkii clown fish

4 yellow tail damsels

1 large diamond gobbie (great fish, but not coral safe)

1 zebra card.

1 pj card.

1 12 line wrasse

1 blue velvet damsel- adult

mated pair of zebra dart fish.

1 sissor dart fish

pair of neon cleaner gobbie's

and recently- a spotted hawk fish

most of these fish remain pretty small, and docile- this is why I keep this many in my tank, and why I can do such w/o issue.

I also have a wall to wall reef over 250 lbs of live rock that is a continous cave system that is 24 inches high in a 36 inch tall tank.

 

you could probably fit 200-300 in their depending on there size and the amount of rock work. How you would handle the filtration I don't know.


I would only keep 3 with normal filtration and thinking about there fully grown size.

 

About the ICH-X, it will have some draw backs. It's like other medications, but no copper and small amounts of the other ingredients. It took about 8 days for my 185 to be cleared of Ich. By some drawbacks, I mean maybe a couple of hermits or snails dying. Possibly some unhardy corals too, but I'd say fish are more expensive. If you want to se extra safe, take out the corals and put them into a quarantine tank while medicating. It has been reef tested, and I'm currently using it for the 2nd time in my 185 gallon, and haven't experienced any problems. 4 oz. Only costs $6.00.

 

RR dont you have a quarintine system in place? heck- use a 5 gallon bucket- then you wont have re-occurences of this evil stuff.

 

Ill chime in here since I have had a good deal of tangs and all have done very very well. in my 75, I had 3 small tangs. a powder brown, Purple and Tomini. all did very well together and had Extremely vibrant colors. very heathy fish. I fed them a mixed diet of Flake and the occasional once a month emerald entree frozen along with Cyclopeze. they got their green diet from the tank itself. Wonderful fish and I miss them as I had to sell them due to moving.

in my 180, I have a Sohal, Naso and Purple. all three are very plump and colorful. you can see photos of them in my build thread. I feed them a mixture of Flake food once daily, 1/4 sheet of Nori daily, and the weekly self made frozen fish cocaine.

I swear by Ocean Nutrition Formula 2 flakes. they have done me well for YEARS. I have never experienced HLLE disease nor any other diseases in my tangs.

here is an ok video of them tearing apart a nori sheet.

 

I wouldn't use any medication in a reef aquarium, even if it has been reef tested. Your best bet would be to set up a quarantine tank and for every fish you buy, keep it in that tank for a few weeks before putting it in your main tank. Especially tangs. I've never tried this, but if you have a fish infected with ich, move it to the quarantine and use copper based medications to cure the Ich. Do this for a few weeks to make sure the Ich is cured, and then you could possibly move the fish back to the main tank.

 

I also am not a fan of medicating the entire tank. QT before introduction is the way to go. I know many here who dont (myself included) and we are playing roulette that something is going to get into the tank. I have a QT tank in my garage but i dont have all the necessary elements for it to run yet. I will have those this spring and at that point will do that. in the meantime I dont plan to add many fish yet so I am just doing a freshwater dip on them for now.

OH and there is no "reef Safe" ICH medication. all are worthless IMO and you can only erradicate it by Hypo and Copper. and if you have once fish with it in your tank, the parasite is there and can potentially infect all fish new and old.

 

I've never done a freshwater dip. How exactly is one done and for how long? Ive heard about them from my LFS.

 

this is the best that I have done in my opinion. I use this or a variation of it.
Freshwater Dip for Marine Fishes

 

Thanks for the link. Very informative.