Fish disease(very long post)

[hoopsdaddy]

While I don't consider myself a newb when it comes to keeping fish having kept FW fish for 5+ years and SW for almost 4 years fish disease is something I am not very good at diagnosing and treating. So, I do have a question about SW Ich.

How do you sucessfully diagnose it?

I ask because as many of you know I just placed a beautiful Yellow Belly Blue Hippo Tang into my QT. ( QT is a 29g with 2 hang on sponge filters/no carbon, 2 powerheads, and one heater. It has been cycled and showes 0-Am, 0-Ni, 0-Na, 1.024sal, and stays at 79deg. It has been set up for over 2 months and water parameters are consistent for the last month. There are 3 green chromis in this tank and they have been in the tank for a month. These reading have not changes since the introduction of the new fish. I test this tank daily.)

The tang was acclimated accoring to the procedure 2Drs recommends( I will not list this as it is very long). After 2hrs in the tank I fed Emerald Entre with garlic and the tang ate vigorously! Upon waking the next morning I turned on the lights and to my horror the tang swam out and had about 20 white dots on its fins and side. (there is no sand in this tank). I was very upset. After calming down I began slowly treating the tank with copper as instructed by the bottle. I had to go to work and when I came home the tang still had the spots as expected. I fed him again with Emerald Entre with garlic and he ate even better than the previous night. I also added a garlic dipped algae sheet. The next morning the tang had eaten the algae strip and I fed some dry food and he ate it quickly. He had about 15 white dots as I could see. That night I refed with the emerald entre and garlic and he ate great. This morning I wake up and check on him and he only has about 5 spots on him and he has already eaten a garlic soaked algae sheet( about 2x3) and some garlic emerald entre. As I write this I can only see 3 spots left on him and he is out swimming all over the tank and trying to school with the 3 green chromis!

All of that to ask this. I do not beleive this is ich. So if it is not what is it and am I treating it properly? If it is ich I would like to know also and the steps that I should take and the amount of time I should wait before introduction to the DT.
Thanks for all the help and I am sorry this is so long but I know the more info that I can give the better you will be able to answer.

 

[daugherty]

can you take a pic of it. it does sound like ich to me. i think the best way to get rid of it is treating with copper there are two different kinds kleted and non-kleted (sp)
so make shure you have a test kit for the kind that you are treating with. you have to be carefull because to much cooper is fatal and to little will do nothing for getting rid of the ich. the fish needs to be treated for at least 3 weeks. do not use any carbon in the water it will pull the copper out.

 

[Bifferwine]

Why do you not think it's ich? It sounds exactly like ich. With hippo tangs (which are hyper sensitive to ich, moreso than other fish), the simple act of moving it from tank to tank can trigger an ich outbreak.

 

[cthegame]

+1 james & biff

 

[Teixeira29]

+2 james & biff

 

[dustin_P74]

+3 to the above posts

 

[yote]

+4
Thats marine ick.I have yet to see a hippo tang come in a shipment that DIDNT get ick.
But the good news is,90% of the time,the will be just fine.

 

[hoopsdaddy]

My understanding of ich (obviously I am wrong) is that it stays on the fish for longer periods of time. From the time of first treatment to today is approx 48hrs. The fish has gone from 20-30 small white dots on the body and fins to 4 dots that I really have to look for to find.
Does the copper do that good of a job treating the ich parasite? I guess I was just a newb to the ich process. The last time I went through an ich outbreak from the first sign of white spots to the death of the fish was three days. It went from 25 white spots to 100 white spots to dead fish.
Don't get me wrong. If this is ich which was my first diagnosis, then I am very happy that he is recovering so quickly. And Biff I have been researching this fish for quite a while and you are right it is very prone to an outbreak of ich if stressed.

 

[hoopsdaddy]

My next quesstions are these:
1. Is three weeks in the OT long enough to kill all stages of the the parasite?
2. Is the tang going to stress and have another ich outbreak in the display once moved?
3. Does my QT need to be broken down and cleaned out and then set back up and recycled or will the copper in the water take care of all the parasite?

Thanks so much for the help vets!

 

[daugherty]

once all the stanges of ich are dead than you will never have ich again unless you introduce it again. go with 4 to 5 week being treated in copper just to make shure but it will kill it. no need to break down the tank because of the copper in it. just make shure that you test everyday to make shure the levels of copper are were they need to be

 

[IraqVeteran]

I break mine down everytime. If I know I am getting a new fish then before I leave the house I mix about 5 gallons of fresh SW. I take out about 5gal from my main tank and put it in my tiny 5gal QT (none of my fish I buy are large) And then once the new SW is dissolved I put it in the main tank to make up for what I just took out and it adds to your water change (not by much). This has worked for me because I hate having a little tank just sitting there for no purpose other than QT...so I do this when I need it and its not in the way. I see your QT is 29gal so this may not be what you want to do. I just thought I would tell the way I do it and you can make a judgement call on your part for what will work for you.

 

[sen5241b]

Daugherty+1 "Ich is always present" is a myth. Ich free tanks do exists.

 

[daugherty]

Daugherty+1 "Ich is always present" is a myth. Ich free tanks do exists.

i have never had ich and never will have it in my tank all my fish sit in copper for 4 to 5 weeks before the lfs will sell them

 

[IraqVeteran]

It can still get in. The LFS I go to puts there's in copper for a while also and I've had fish get ich anyway. I dont know if ich can live within LR or sand for any period of time without a host or not because if so then that may be another way it comes in the tank.

 

[daugherty]

if you treat them like you should than it is dead and you will not get it ever it can not live without a host for more than a 4 to 6 weeks

 

[hoopsdaddy]

Is it possible for inverts to be hosts for the ich parasite?

 

[daugherty]

Is it possible for inverts to be hosts for the ich parasite?

no they can not host them

 

[yote]

What you seen,was the copper killing the visible ick parasites.They fall off the fish as they die,so you can see the effects of the copper.

 

[hoopsdaddy]

So the invisible parasites that are dormant right now will "normally" hatch out soon (5-10 days) and the copper in the tank should kill them before they attatch to the fish.

Do I have this sorta right?

 

[Bifferwine]

Everyone is right so far, just because you can't see it on the fish doesn't mean it doesn't have ich. The spots are disappearing, but the fish still can still have ich after the spots have gone away. That's why it takes so many weeks and months of treatment to eliminate it completely. A fish can be carrying ich and not show any symptoms (and unless you quarantine and treat them before adding to your tank, it's a pretty much 100% guarantee that all fish carry ich).