The most feared happened....

Powder blues are really not a fish suitable for a young tank, I learned that the hard way myself. If your set on keeping him, get yourself a neon goby and a couple cleaner shrimp to keep the ich at bay, just know it will always be in your system until you leave the tank fishless for 6-8 weeks.

~Will.

 

Well.. My original plan was to take it back to the lfs but I'm getting told that it is better for me to keep it. And that if I keep feeding well it will go away.

 

As long as your water quality is good and everyone is eating good, I wouldn't worry It's something that happens all the time, specially with tangs. I just had some crop up on my tang after adding two clowns, it disappeared on its own in 2 weeks. Most of the info you read about ich that says it ends tanks, spread like wildfire, etc is terribly outdated, or occurred in non-healthy tanks.

 

+1 on the cleaner shrimp they will really help and try feeding a pinch of cyclop-eeze it really helped my hippo and colored him up nice

 

I do have a cleaner shrimp, hope he makes things better.

 

so wait.. if a fish has ich, then it dissapears the ich still there right??

and if it is, and its not affecting the fish anymore, then why wont it die after a period of time? since it cant host a fish anymore..

 

Tangs always have ich... well maybe not always, but for practical purposes they pretty much live with it... whenever they are stressed they "break out" with a few dots and they usually go away pretty quickly if the stress is resolved.

It's like herpes... it's always there but you just don't always see it

Welcome to the joy of the tang, this is why they are not for beginners, too high maintenance and too much stress.

Neon gobies are a tang's best friends.

 

The only true method of eliminating ich is to let a tank go fallow (fishless) for a period of no less than 8 weeks. This will completely rid a tank of ich... assuming that you take ALL of the fish out and all of the fish rid themselves of it in the quarantine tank before you return them to the display tank.

And something you put in your tank unless you properly quarantine everything, which most don't... is going to bring ich with it... it's just inevitable... most fish just aren't susceptible to it unless they are severely stressed, tangs seem to get it at the slightest hint of stress.

 

Why dont you just give it a freshwater dip? I purchased a tang with Ich and didnt realize it until i put it in my display tank. Then i noticed the Ich on him. Caught him out and gave him a 5min freshwater bath and have not seen another outbreak. This was over a year ago.

 

The one really good LFS around here recommends Para Guard added to the water during the drip aclimation if you dont quarentine the fish. He really really stresses quarentining but says this is a decent alternative. Just add it to the water the fish came in per the directions and make sure NONE of the water gets into your tank.