got ethical husbandry?

Blue tang and some bad ich.

L

L/B Block

Supporting Member
BARcard
Well the blue tang has had ich before (and it resolved on its own) but this time it looks really bad and only getting worse. Fortunately no other fish show any indications.

I don’t have a hospital tank and even if I did not sure if that would resolve anything as my understanding is that moving him to a small tank would only stress him out anyway. Can’t treat in tank with copper due to corals otherwise I’d just dose the whole tank.

He is still eating and viciously tearing up the seaweed I provide in the tank. I have also been giving pellets with garlic in it but he is really not looking good or happy.

Suggestions welcomed.
Lawrence


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
If you're not planning on treating the whole tank (meaning catching all the fish and letting the tank go fallow for 76 days), then there isn't much point to catching and treating the blue tang in isolation.

Your options are:

1) catch all the fish and treat them (TTM, copper or CP)

2) catch the blue tang and find it a new home

3) live with ich and see if the blue tang pulls through.

Things that can help with option 3 are a large UV sterilizer, or commercial products such as polyp lab's medic.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Gablami said:
If you're not planning on treating the whole tank (meaning catching all the fish and letting the tank go fallow for 76 days), then there isn't much point to catching and treating the blue tang in isolation.

Your options are:

1) catch all the fish and treat them (TTM, copper or CP)

2) catch the blue tang and find it a new home

3) live with ich and see if the blue tang pulls through.

Things that can help with option 3 are a large UV sterilizer, or commercial products such as polyp lab's medic.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
I’ll check out #3. How does the UV sterilizer help?
I don’t think anyone wants a fish with ich?



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Free swimming portions of the ich life cycle are vulnerable to UV. The idea is it doesn't cure or remove all the ich, but it reduces the parasite load, giving your fish's immune system a better chance to fight off the infection.

One can easily perform TTM on an infected fish to eliminate ich before introducing it to a new tank.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Gablami said:
Free swimming portions of the ich life cycle are vulnerable to UV. The idea is it doesn't cure or remove all the ich, but it reduces the parasite load, giving your fish's immune system a better chance to fight off the infection.

One can easily perform TTM on an infected fish to eliminate ich before introducing it to a new tank.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Polyp lab medic looks promising! Thanks again!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
id try medic. i personally use option 3. my blue tang has gotten ich like 4 times, just keep them well fed and try to reduce stressers like water parameter fluctuations
 
polyp lab's medic is an oxidizer (peroxide) mixed with some sort of antibiotic.
Not sure how that relates to really killing ich.
So many products claim to help. So far, none really do, or they would sell like crazy.

There was some hope about chloroquine, but that seems to have fizzled out also.

However, I consider #3 a real option, having done that myself unfortunately.
A lot of people believe (myself included) that ich will die out eventually.
My story:
I did a short QT due to going on vacation. Introduced ich. Several fish died.
With a 240G tank, it is not really practical to pull all fish and QT.
But those that survived fought it off, and after a year, no signs of ich since,
including when I have added ich-magnet type tangs.
 
Reminder: Ich is far from the only disease out there.
It is not even the worst, just the most common.
All you need for QT is two 5 gallon buckets and ability to mix a fair amount of salt water. Look into tank transfer method.
 
rygh said:
polyp lab's medic is an oxidizer (peroxide) mixed with some sort of antibiotic.
Not sure how that relates to really killing ich.
So many products claim to help. So far, none really do, or they would sell like crazy.

There was some hope about chloroquine, but that seems to have fizzled out also.

However, I consider #3 a real option, having done that myself unfortunately.
A lot of people believe (myself included) that ich will die out eventually.
My story:
I did a short QT due to going on vacation. Introduced ich. Several fish died.
With a 240G tank, it is not really practical to pull all fish and QT.
But those that survived fought it off, and after a year, no signs of ich since,
including when I have added ich-magnet type tangs.
Click to expand...
Doesn’t appear that this medic would really be effective since an antibiotic would do nothing for a disease such as Ich (which is a protozoan).

I had Ich in my 300g a couple years ago. It was indeed almost impractical to catch all the fish, perform TTM and have the 300g go fallow for three months. Very very painful....but totally worth it in the long run!
 
rygh said:
polyp lab's medic is an oxidizer (peroxide) mixed with some sort of antibiotic.
Not sure how that relates to really killing ich.
So many products claim to help. So far, none really do, or they would sell like crazy.

There was some hope about chloroquine, but that seems to have fizzled out also.

However, I consider #3 a real option, having done that myself unfortunately.
A lot of people believe (myself included) that ich will die out eventually.
My story:
I did a short QT due to going on vacation. Introduced ich. Several fish died.
With a 240G tank, it is not really practical to pull all fish and QT.
But those that survived fought it off, and after a year, no signs of ich since,
including when I have added ich-magnet type tangs.
Click to expand...

It is used to manage ich, not to fully eradicate it. I would avoid it. At this time there is no known reef safe medication to eliminate ich. Moving the fish to an isolated quarantine tank and treating with copper, CP, hyposalinity, or tank transfer method are the only known effective ways to treat ich.
As far as I know ich will completely die in the system after about four years. That means in those four years you can not add any new livestock without fully quarantining or you will run the risk of introducting a new strain of ich that will run for another four years.
 
Tmjvb said:
It is used to manage ich, not to fully eradicate it. I would avoid it. At this time there is no known reef safe medication to eliminate ich. Moving the fish to an isolated quarantine tank and treating with copper, CP, hyposalinity, or tank transfer method are the only known effective ways to treat ich.
As far as I know ich will completely die in the system after about four years. That means in those four years you can not add any new livestock without fully quarantining or you will run the risk of introducting a new strain of ich that will run for another four years.
Click to expand...
We used Ich Attack with sucess in our fresh water tank. It says reef safe.
 
The problem with anecdotal reports of success with project XYZ - doing nothing also works.
Not only that, but due to the life cycle, it can appear like immediate success when ich drops off,
even though that is just a normal phase.
So a product can look like it worked, even though it did little.
 
Ive been very lucky this time around but in the past Ive tried so many products and found none of them to work. Im with Mark in the thought of if there was a magic product out there that did wipe out ich it would be a number one seller
 
Have a good quarantine regiment and don't introduce it in the first place. It takes patience but I put all my fish through quarantine and don't have any random fish deaths it tank wipes anymore. Been there done it.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Well I eventually went with option #4-do nothing and wait. The blue tang seems to be doing ok and there are only 1-2 dots left. Blue tang is the only one that has had it so far so I take that as a good sign for now. Trying to stabilize the tank these days and really not adding any fish in the near future with the 11 we have-
Clown, blue tang, 3 aranthias, starry blenny, the diamond back goby, the red ruby dragonette, two wrasses, and a foxfish.

Just keep with the corals for now. Lot to go there.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
For the future, the tank transfer method works great, takes about 15 days, and can be done with an air pump and 2 5 gallon buckets. It is much less stressful on the fish than copper or CP.
There is no evidence that medic does anything, and how it is said to work doesn't make sense. UV can help but is often impractical as you need a butt ton of it with a butt ton of flow through it.

How long has the tang been without symptoms?
 
Thales said:
For the future, the tank transfer method works great, takes about 15 days, and can be done with an air pump and 2 5 gallon buckets. It is much less stressful on the fish than copper or CP.
There is no evidence that medic does anything, and how it is said to work doesn't make sense. UV can help but is often impractical as you need a butt ton of it with a butt ton of flow through it.

How long has the tang been without symptoms?
Click to expand...
Seemed that the worst of it was previous Sunday. He is still with some symptoms just not as covered with white dots and running himself against the rock.

But def will be looking at the ttm in the future.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The problem is ich lifecycle it drops of the fish and then multiplies and repeats itself by re-attaching into the fish. The white dots are more like exit wounds on the fish.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top