Our mission

Powder Blue Tang has Ich!!

177ike

177ike

Guest
BARcard
So I've had my PBT for about 1.5 months now with no signs of any sickness. Healthy, eating well, with nori and frozen foods. This afternoon, I noticed the dreaded white spots on his body and fins. I added a wrasse about a week and a half ago that got stressed from the fish in the display and jumped into the overflow down into my refugium area of my sump. The wrasses has been in my sump for a few days now and I'm thinking he is the one that introduced the parasite into my tank.. I've since removed the wrasse and he is now in my 10 gallon quarantine tank.

My questions is should I wait and see if the PBT gets better on his own? Or should I remove him now and treat in the quarantine with Quick Cure (Malachite Green). I've only had experience treating freshwater fish with Malachite, so any other suggestions on how to deal with this are appreciated. Thanks!!
 
You could always do a freshwater dip, or if the tank has nothing but fish then you could treat with copper. All About Fish doses their Fish Only tanks with copper and I've never seen ich in there.
 
Thanks for the suggestion.

Unfortunately my tank is a reef with many frags of SPS as well as inverts, a BTA, etc.. I just tried to net him out but there's no way I'm going to be able to do so. He's waay too fast with many caves and rocks to hide behind. At this point, I feel as though all I can do is wait and see if it gets better. If I see it getting worse, I'll have to make some hard decisions as to what to do. Worse case, I'll have to pull out all my SPS frags as well as the BTA (not sure how malachite will affect them) and dose my entire display with Malachite. Not sure about what to do with the two shrimp I have in there. I'm hoping I won't have to go there.
 
As long as the fish continues to feed, fortify the frozen food with garlic and HUFA's. Tangs feed all day and should be given "appitizers" at least 5times a day.
Good luck
 
Ya, he's still eating everything and anything I feed him. I'm still trying to think back as to what might have caused the outbreak. The only changes I've made to the tank have been the addition of the Wrasse from Neptune as well as starting to feed Nori. Do you think it could be from the Nori? I also noticed my pH swung significantly higher today to 8.48. My tank is usually pretty stable around 8.35 to 8.41. This is after doing a 5 gallon water change on my 105 gallon system (total volume). I'm not sure why my pH changed, so I'm recalibrating my probe now.

On a positive note, I'm actually glad I'm learning this lesson now as opposed to when my tank is much more mature with colonies I've grown to love.. Even so, I'd hate to tear down the little growth I've already had and start over.
 
I put nori (w/ clip) in a clear acrylic trap. My tang, foxface and angel goes in it all the time. Worth a try in before pulling out all the rocks.
 
sid700 said:
I put nori (w/ clip) in a clear acrylic trap. My tang, foxface and angel goes in it all the time. Worth a try in before pulling out all the rocks.
Click to expand...

Did you make the trap? If not, where can I find one? The other thing is my Maroon Clownfish has taken a liking to nori as well. I suppose it doesn't really matter if I trap both.
 
I bought it from another. Live Aquaria used to carry it. You can borrow it when the time comes. I can't find a pic in the web, but the door turns (like a revolving door).
 
Euphyllia said:
You could always do a freshwater dip, or if the tank has nothing but fish then you could treat with copper. All About Fish doses their Fish Only tanks with copper and I've never seen ich in there.
Click to expand...


FW dips are not recommend as treatment for ich for a variety of reasons. If they were to work at all, there would need to be multiple treatments and the repeated osmotic shock is thought to be too stressful on the fish. Even if the FW dip killed the trophonts inside the fish of the skin (and they probably have no effect - the skin protects the trophont) as soon as the fish is put back in the tank it came from, its going to be infected again.

Treat ich with copper or even better, hyposalinity, in a QT tank for 30-60 days. Other off the shelf products do nothing. Do not treat with copper in the main tank unless it is going to be Fish Only forever.

In the case of a PBT with ich, unless the infection was massive, I would feed the crap out of it and see if the natural immunity kicks in. PBT's are notorious for having ich and kicking it.
 
PS - freshwater ich and saltwater ich are two different animals, and the treatments do not cross over.

There are a plethora of articles about treatment of saltwater ich if you want the gory details. :D
 
My blue regal tang shows signs of ich probably once a month. I just leave it be and feed normaly and it clears itself up in a couple of days. IIRC PBT and Regal Tangs are notorius for getting ich.
 
That's promising to hear about tangs kicking ick on their own.

My lights haven't come on yet today, but it looks like the ick is getting better on my PBT. I'm now wondering if the roasted nori I started feeding my tang caused the ick outbreak. I've since been feeding Hikari frozen foods, which is what I fed before successfully prior to any ick. Do you think there are additives and preservatives in the roasted nori that might have caused the ick outbreak?
 
177ike said:
That's promising to hear about tangs kicking ick on their own.

My lights haven't come on yet today, but it looks like the ick is getting better on my PBT.
Click to expand...

Remember it has to be gone for several weeks before you can breathe a sigh of relief. The boom and bust nature of the parasite is such that the spots vanish, but can return. In your case, I think you'll be fine, just covering the bases.

I'm now wondering if the roasted nori I started feeding my tang caused the ick outbreak.
Click to expand...

I don't see how that would be possible.

I've since been feeding Hikari frozen foods, which is what I fed before successfully prior to any ick.
Click to expand...

Before you saw signs of any crypto. It could easily have been there in low enough numbers to not be seeable.

Do you think there are additives and preservatives in the roasted nori that might have caused the ick outbreak?
Click to expand...

Nope. :D
 
Alright, I went ahead and picked up some Marine Formula 1 Pellets. The tang seems to be readily eating them. I also pulled out my old Eheim autofeeder I had from my freshwater days.. I hate using it because it's so uncontrollable in terms of consistent feeding when it dumps. Nonetheless, I feel that my tang just wasn't being fed enough throughout the day and the eheim will put food in the tank when I cannot do so. Since it couldn't have been the nori, I'm definitely chalking it up to not enough feeding. It makes sense that the inadequate feeding must be the case, considering the circumstances of my tank. I mean, I had a major hair algae outbreak after setting up my tank, which helped feed my tang when first introduced into the tank. During this time, my skimmer had been working nicely, pulling out thick dark gunk. However, now that the hair algae is completely gone from every rock, my skimmer hasn't been pulling out anything. This indicates to me that my tank was not being fed enough and since my tang no longer had the hair algae to feed on, he became ill with crypto. Sound about right?
 
Since it couldn't have been the nori, I'm definitely chalking it up to not enough feeding. It makes sense that the inadequate feeding must be the case, considering the circumstances of my tank ....This indicates to me that my tank was not being fed enough and since my tang no longer had the hair algae to feed on, he became ill with crypto. Sound about right?
Click to expand...

Ill jump in here for Rich - the feeding or lack of feeding of any of these foods wont "cause" the ich. At the end of the day, your tank and fish in the tank have the ich parasite.

However, many fish and tanks have this parasite present and a healthy fish is able to fight off the parasite. Certainly, the quality of the feed may help to establish the fish's proper immune system, but IMHO dry pellets will not substantially aid the fish in the long run. Nori, and other live marine algae are an excellent food source for the PBT and I'd suggest continuing to feed these foods.
 
kvosstra said:
Since it couldn't have been the nori, I'm definitely chalking it up to not enough feeding. It makes sense that the inadequate feeding must be the case, considering the circumstances of my tank ....This indicates to me that my tank was not being fed enough and since my tang no longer had the hair algae to feed on, he became ill with crypto. Sound about right?
Click to expand...

Ill jump in here for Rich - the feeding or lack of feeding of any of these foods wont "cause" the ich. At the end of the day, your tank and fish in the tank have the ich parasite.
Click to expand...

Yep! And its important to remember that PBT's are ich magnets. They are famous for it. Spots come and go over time and its really nothing to worry about - unless the infection gets out of hand.

However, many fish and tanks have this parasite present and a healthy fish is able to fight off the parasite. Certainly, the quality of the feed may help to establish the fish's proper immune system, but IMHO dry pellets will not substantially aid the fish in the long run. Nori, and other live marine algae are an excellent food source for the PBT and I'd suggest continuing to feed these foods.
Click to expand...
Yep! Feed him a varied diet - PE mysis is good and fatty. :D
 
My fish had ich when I first started my tank. I treated them with hyposalinity and left my tank fallow for 8 weeks. Since then I got a UV sterilizer and all new additions where QT with prazipro and quinine sulphate. I've been careless and added a lot of corals recently without QT or dipping and noticed that my blue hippo tang has ich again. I introduced a purple tang that went through QT and he has ich now. I'm not gonna bother taking them out this time. Unless they are seriously plastered with white spots I'll take them out. I'm hoping they can fight it off.
 
I've got PE Mysis as well, so his diet has been extremely varied today. My tang is nice and fat today as I've been feeding him throughout the day. When I speak about not feeding leading to ich, I know this does not directly cause ich, but may leave the fish more susceptible to the parasite. Thanks for clarifying the point, however.

I'm still a bit apprehensive about using nori again. Just to be sure, I've got the sheets of nori that come from the asian grocery stores. The package reads Matsusaki Roasted Dried Seaweed. If anyone is familiar with this stuff, is it okay?? Can anyone give more specific names to the brands of nori they use? Thanks!
 
Kensington Reefer said:
I would also recommend a UV
Click to expand...

Nearly every single hobbyost UV is not strong enough to kill ich in any stage, even vastly oversized. I'm surprised you recommend it for ich :(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top