Purple Tang and Ich. What to do

[baseballkid5]

Ive had an established fish only Tank for going on 2 years. ive recently started going towards softies and leathers to start. I have a vlamingi tang Trying to sell, Blue angel Juv,Harlequin tusk Juv, Dalmation Puffer Juv, 2-3 foot Zebra Eel Trying to sell as well.
I Just purchased a Purple tang about 3" and have had him for 3 days Up until today i did not see any signs of ich and then the lights came on And there they were on his body. I have 0 of the other fish with any Ich at all that i can see visibly. Im feeding Some fern calerpa, Green seaweed with garlic extracts as well as spectrum and formula one pellets.
I want to start adding some leathers and stuff so i know i can not hypo the tank like ive done in the past. What are the options to treat this. Or are they hardy enough it should go away. Please help me with this as this was the prized fish i don not want to lose this one for sure.
I do not have a quarantine tank so that option is out unless i have to.
please help with some suggestions.
Thanks

 

[returnofsid]

I would suggest holding off on adding any corals to this tank and treat it with a hyposalinity. Removing the Purple Tang and treating it with hypo in a separate tank is an option, however, if that fish has it, there's a good chance the others will get it. Treating the Purple Tang separately won't get rid of any Ich that's already in your tank.

 

[Humahuma08]

Puple Tang and Ich

I have a reef tank with 2 Triggers, 2 Wrasse, 2 Tangs (one of which is a Purple Tang) and some other smaller fish and inverts. Crazy mix, but it works.

I also had my Purple Tang come down with ich, a couple days after putting him into my main tank. Probably because of all the very active company.

In the past I have used prevent ich and ich attack, whick are both reef & invert safe. While that may be true, I've actually not seen any results that would lead me to believe either of them actually do anything to help with the ich.

So, with the Purple Tang I did nothing....drastic. I did however feed them great foods like you've mentioned. I got some sea lettuce and red garcia, which they love! My Purple tang will also enthusiastically eat brine shrimp with spirinula. I also did a fairly deep water change after a couple days.

I do run a good protein skimmer and UV sterilizer, which probably helps.

Even though the fish was pretty covered in the stuff, it all cleared up after a week or two and no one else got ich. I think these Tangs are pretty hardy, at least from what I can tell.

I hope something here might be of help and wish you the best!

 

[baseballkid5]

I am purchasing a cleaner wrasse Monday.I know if there's not a lot of parasites it might not live but it worth a try.I would rather not put any chemicals in the tank.Im removing a 3 ft eel and a vlamingi tang on Monday

 

[Herefishyfishy]

The wrasse will not rid it of disese. Tangs from the wild are ich magnets.
Sorry, but fish needs hypo or copper and since you have live rock, will need to be kept fallow. Read up on Ich and hypo on stickys in Lee's fish forum here

 

[baseballkid5]

So what happens in the wild? I want the wrasse to contain it. If i put him in a hypo tank and clear him up and put him back in it will prob keep happening. Isnt that what cleaner wrasses are for?Im gonna try the $10 wrasse i think its worth it to see what happens. Like one other post said sometimes they just fight them off with the food you feed. Garlic Etc?
What would be the harm in the wrasse?

 

[returnofsid]

The only way to totally rid both your fish AND tank of Ich is going to be hyposalinity of the Tang and a fishless cycle in the tank with NO FISH for at least 8 weeks. That's why I suggested doing hypo IN your display since there's no corals.

Buying a fish to try to take care of a problem, knowing that the fish will die in a short time is very irresponsible. Sorry to be harsh, but it's the truth. Cleaner Wrasses are "Obligate Feeders" meaning, without parasites, they'll die quickly.

Your single Wrasse will NOT "contain it." If you put him in hypo AND treat the tank with a fishless period of 8 weeks, you'll have cured the problem.

I can tell this isn't what you want to hear...and you'll do what you decide to do anyway...but our responsibility as ethical reef keepers is to do what's right by our fish, our tanks AND the Wild Reefs and Ocean.

 

[balogh03]

I must agree with everyone else on this, that the wrasse will not do anything to help your cause (learned from experience). I would do the same thing you are doing when I got into this hobby 5 years ago and it just turns into a big ball that you will regret later. Take advantage of all the help here and know that we don't just make this stuff up . I still have slight amounts of ich in my tank, but that is because there are to many fish that I would not be able to catch and the tank is too mature for me to tear it apart. Trust me that the next tank I set up though, will be 100% ich free from the start.

Good luck, and keep us posted.

-augustus

 

[ynot reef]

I use a product called Kick-Ich. thats all i ever used. i have a 155 gallon full reef with sps softies inverts and it cured my tang and didnt harm anything. you can also use it when adding more fish. havent had an ich outbreak since. its not cheap tho but neither is reefing. google it good luck

 

[returnofsid]

Ynot reef, I would be highly suspect that the kick ich actually cured your fish. It's more likely that your fish was healthy enough to combat it on it's own and that you still have Ich in your tank. The logic behind this is that anything that will kill Ich, WILL kill other things in your reef. There's a few studies out there in the land of internet into kick ich and rid ich....showing that they are not only NOT reef safe, but not even of value against Ich. I'd say you got lucky. There's lots of things that are marketed as reef safe, yet claim to kill parasites of different kinds. The only problem with that is that there are other kritters in our tanks that are very similar to the parasites we're trying to kill...but want to keep alive. If it kill the parasites, it'll kill the good stuff too.

 

[NaH2O]

The only way to totally rid both your fish AND tank of Ich is going to be hyposalinity of the Tang and a fishless cycle in the tank with NO FISH for at least 8 weeks. That's why I suggested doing hypo IN your display since there's no corals.

Buying a fish to try to take care of a problem, knowing that the fish will die in a short time is very irresponsible. Sorry to be harsh, but it's the truth. Cleaner Wrasses are "Obligate Feeders" meaning, without parasites, they'll die quickly.

Your single Wrasse will NOT "contain it." If you put him in hypo AND treat the tank with a fishless period of 8 weeks, you'll have cured the problem.

I can tell this isn't what you want to hear...and you'll do what you decide to do anyway...but our responsibility as ethical reef keepers is to do what's right by our fish, our tanks AND the Wild Reefs and Ocean.

I couldn't agree more. I would not add the wrasse and go ahead with the hyposalinity treatment. Also, if you have an eel, then don't treat with copper.

Here is some reading for you. I encourage you to read through the links provided, there will be a quiz

Marine Ich - Myths and Facts

A Hyposalinity Treatment Process

Can you elaborate on your system a little bit? What size tank? Please keep in mind that after you go through the process of hyposalinity treatment, that anything you add new to the system should be put through a quarantine procedure. The parasites could come in on a piece of rock with a coral on it from an infected tank.

*I'm going to move this to Lee's forum for his expertise on the subject, and hopefully he can add some more to the discussion.

 

[ynot reef]

well ive never had any ich problems ever come back after i used kick ich. i've bought the stuff 3 times in the 10 years ive been reefing. and i only needed it because i introduced some new fish with ich already. maybe i lost some other parasites that were good, but my reef didnt notice. well good luck with the ich.

 

[g0rFz]

the wrasse will only end up getting it and cause more problems. remember if you decide to treat your tank do not use copper with a puffer.

COPPER WILL HARM SCALELESS FISH