I think my tang has Ick!

[millstreetzoo]

I just got home from work and noticed that my Sailfin Tang has what appears to be ick. White spots on his fins and a few on his body. I did not notice this last night or this morning. Since I have no invertibrates yet is it OK to treat him in the main tank? If so, what do you recommend as the best treatment? I haven't set up my sick tank yet. I was going to do that this weekend.

I have a cleaner shrimp who has been cleaning him. I also have a green chromis, 2 peppermint shrimp, 20 various snails and 10 little hermits who all appear very healthy. The Tang acts fine - very friendly and eating well.

I have a 55 which I set up a month ago with cured live rock and live sand. I haven't seen any real rise in Ammonia, Nitrite or Nitrate. All of my peramiters test fine. As far as I know my temperature stays stable. I have 2 - 100w heaters. I also have a Remora Pro skimmer and an Aqua 110 filter. I am in the middle of a diatom bloom, I believe my phosphates are high so I put some kent marine phosphate absorber in the filter last night. Could this have cuased a problem?

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

 

[Omni2226]

Well seems like no one else is going to say it so I will.

You broke all the rules and now you are/will pay the price.
You should have set up the QT/hospital tank and quarantined your Tang BEFORE adding it to the main system.

The general rule is quarantine for 4 weeks.

Your entire system is now infected with ich (if it is indeed ich) and medicating the tank will more than likely kill everything in it (all your crabs,snails,worms and microbugs).

The only safe and sure way to get it out of your system is to remove all fish and let the system go fallow (fishless) for about 6 to 8 weeks.
(Or break it all the way down.clean it and start over)
The brown diatom is normal and will fade away on its own in time as the tank ages.

You added/dosed chemicals without testing? The general rule is never dose/add chemicals of any kind without testing first.

Not trying to be a asshat butt just stating the truth, going by what you have posted above.

Remove the Tang and place it in a hospital tank ASAP, and you should treat any other fish too even if they show no outer signs of disease.

I know of no other way to fix the mistakes that have been made,but other people with more experience may chime in.

 

[millstreetzoo]

Thank you for your candor Omni. I appreciate any help with my tank. I kept salt water for years but have been out of the hobby for the last 12 years.

I should have been more specific with info. I did test for phosphates - I have a salifet test kit and it came in at just a hair over 1ppm, which I felt after reading my saltwater chemistry book was high, so I added the phosphate absorber to my Aqua 110 filter for 12 hours.

Actually I shut my MH lighting off early last evening and the cleaner shrimp went to town on the Tang and this morning he looks really good. Just a couple if any spots left. The other fish is unaffected.

I will take your advice and be sure to quarintine any new additions in the future. I plan to set up a quarintine tank this evening.
Thanks again for the helpful info. I'm sure I will make many mistakes along the way.

 

[Omni2226]

Ya I wouldnt want anyone to be gentle on me when I make a mistake (and I know I will).

I used a 5 gallon bucket to qt my little starter fish but have 20 gallon that I will use from now on.

I misunderstood about the phospahte thing. Using a poly filter aint gonna hurt anything at all I misread and thought you added a chemical/liquid/powder type thing.

The cleaner shrimp is good but if the pathogen is in the system it may come back if/when the fish get stressed. Hopefully some of the experts can recommend ways to lower the chances of it being a major outbreak.

 

[Anonymous]

Do some research on your sailfin tang. Your tank may be too small for a tang. Most tangs need 95 or above.

 

[millstreetzoo]

My son actually got me the Tang and his companion cleaner shrimp. The Tang is really small right now. I plan to set up a 120 gal FOWLR once I get this reef tank established so he will go into that tank once he gets bigger.

 

[Meloco14]

Since I have no invertibrates yet is it OK to treat him in the main tank?
I have a cleaner shrimp who has been cleaning him. I also have a green chromis, 2 peppermint shrimp, 20 various snails and 10 little hermits who all appear very healthy.

Just to clarify for you, your shrimp, snails, and hermits are all invertebrates. You also have many unseen invertebrates in and among the live rock and sand. Treating within the main tank would be bad. I recommend putting the tang and chromis and any other fish you may have into the QT tank as soon as you get it running and stable. As mentioned, the only real way to get rid of ich in the tank is to be fishless for a couple months. Even this is not a guarantee, but it is fairly successful. With your fish in QT, give them a hyposalinity treatment. This will kill off the visible white parasites, which is the adult stage of ich. The larval stage is microscopic, and is present in your main tank even though everything appears normal. They need a fish as a host to reproduce, though, so by taking out the fish you are preventing them from reproducing. You need to leave the fish out of the tank long enough for all the ich to die off, which takes a couple months. Your cleaner shrimp will clean off the larger parasites on your fish, but this will not rid the tank of ich. The ich will continue to attack your fish which will stress them. Ich also will attack the gills of your fish, which the cleaner shrimp cannot easily clean, and this will kill your fish. I hope this helps you understand how ich works, how to treat it, and how to prevent it. As you will learn with this process, it is very important to QT your new fish. Hopefully you caught this early enough to save your fish, with some effort. Good luck.

 

[millstreetzoo]

[With your fish in QT, give them a hyposalinity treatment. ]

Since I'm a newbee - could you explain this process.


Are the fish the only ones susceptible to ICK - what about the snails - hermits etc....



Thanks![/quote]

 

[ChrisRD]

Ich is a fish parasite, so yes, only the fish will be affected.

Hyposalinity treatment involves lowering the salinity from a normal seawater range of about 35ppt down to around 12-14ppt and keeping it there for at least 30 days. Check out the article by Terry B. in this month's http://www.advancedaquarist.com/ for more details.

 

[Anonymous]

UV.. call it a day. Will cost you about 200 bucks. Fire it up, then remove it when it's all gone....don't rush it.

 

[ChrisRD]

FWIW, my thoughts on UV in this thread...
http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=83596

 

[Meloco14]

Chris gave a great link to read up on hyposalinity. Also search the forums here, there will be plenty of threads about it. A UV sterilizer would help kill the free swimming ich in the main tank, so it wouldnt hurt to use one. But there would be no real way to know if and when the UV has killed off the entire population of ich in the tank. For this reason I would still keep the fish out of the tank for a couple months to be safe. I guess its up to you whether spending the money on the UV sterilizer is worth it or not. Using it would help, yes, but not using it would still solve the problem, in this particular case.

 

[millstreetzoo]

I have the isolation tank up. I'm just waiting for the temp to rise a bit. I bought a 10 gallon. I filled with 5 gal of water from my existing tank and 5 new made with RO/DI water. I set it up with an Aqua 30 filter and left out the carbon - should I put the bioballs in?

Can I put a tufa stone in the tank (I have one that I haven't used). The fish will be really unhappy without a place to hide. The LFS gave my drops to put in the water.

I think I will look into a UV Sterilizer, maybe it will clean up my main tank quicker. Does anyone have any recommendations on which is best and where to buy (marine depot?).

I really appreciate everyones imput - I can't thank you all enough.

 

[ChrisRD]

Be sure to cycle the filter on the Q-tank before adding the fish. You can use some large PVC fittings and/or short pieces of pipe for hiding places. I would not recommend something porous like tufa in a hospital/quarantine tank.

 

[millstreetzoo]

I let the filter run for 2 hours, was that long enough - I have already added the fish. I will remove the tufa tomorrow after I buy some PVC pipe.


Another question:
Since Ick parasites go through 4 cycles, one being hardening to live rock; If additional live rock is added to a tank, do you quarintine the live rock before adding it to the main tank?

Should any corals also be quarintined if they are acquired with a bit of live rock.

It seems as though adding a new piece of live rock could contaminate a whole tank. I actually added 3 pieces of live rock on Monday. All were ornamental cured rock with lots of hitchikers (apparently some ick parasites).

It seems as though anything that is ever added to a tank could potentially contain this parasite in some form. Therefore, UV may actually be imperative to stop the cycle. Is this conclusion correct?

 

[Meloco14]

Make sure you monitor your parameters in the Q tank. Since it has just been set up, you are probably going to get some small ammonia nitrite spikes, and almost certainly nitrate. Just be ready to do water changes. I would run carbon on the tank, I don't see any harm in doing so. You can use bio balls if you want to increase bio filtration, but make sure you rinse them off once a week to get the big particles of junk off. I agree with Chris about taking out the rock and adding pvc instead. As far as putting everything into quarantine before putting it into your tank, this is always a good idea. The most important IMO is fish, followed by corals. There are problems with a lot of SPS corals having red bugs and planaria, and you definitely dont want those in your tank. Most people don't QT live rock, but it is important to cure it. Even "cured" live rock from the LFS can have die off and cause a small cycle. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to QT live rock if you buy just a few small pieces to add to your tank. Clams are also important to QT for at least a few days, to ensure they dont have any pyramid snails. The only thing I don't bother quarantining is snails, crabs, and shrimp. There arent too many parasites of those out there, and the ones that exist are usually very specialized and won't affect anything else in the tank. But again, it wouldnt hurt to QT them. Of course, not everyone puts everything into QT, and some people get very lucky and never have problems. UV can be very helpful in killing certain parasites or other harmful micro organisms, but it has its limitations. Obviously, it will only affect organisms suspended in the water that happen to pass through the UV. Along with the harmful organisms, it also kills some beneficial organisms, but to some people this is well worth it. It is definitely not a necessity, but some people find it to be a very valuable asset.

 

[fishaddict]

funny my new yellow tang fell asleep while my cleaners cleaned him.