Yellow tang with black ick.

[solidsnakejv]

I have a yellow tang in a 90 gallong tank. I noticed about 5 days ago that the tang had black spots on it's body, which have slightly increased since. I have 5 other fish in the tank that do not have any black spots.
I did some research on how to treat. Fresh water bath and formalin. I also read about Hyposalinity treatment.
I don't have a QT tank and i can't get one any time soon.
How can i treat the ick an remove it by doing the treatment in the main tank. I have 100 pounds of live rock. I also have 5 mexican turbo snails and about 7 hermit crabs.

It would be a pain to catch the tang for freshwater baths, but even that wouldn't cure it right away. Would formalin treatment in the main tank not be good for my fish, interbrates and live rock? Would hyposalinity be bad for my snails and hermits?

[CaptainAhab]

Short answer is you probably can't. You can try raising the temp to 88-89 but that just helps the ich move quicker through it's lifecycle. You could hypo the main I guess but that will be tons of work. If you can't QT them you are in for a long tough road.

Your inverts won't survive cooper nor hypo (maybe). Dipping would possibly help the fish but the display remains infected. You should QT all the fish and treat in the QT and leave the display without fish (fallow) for 4 weeks? (I forget the timeframe offhand).

Qt-ing before putting fish in the display is the recommended way to avoid where you're at now.

[solidsnakejv]

Originally Posted by CaptainAhab

Short answer is you probably can't. You can try raising the temp to 88-89 but that just helps the ich move quicker through it's lifecycle. You could hypo the main I guess but that will be tons of work. If you can't QT them you are in for a long tough road.

Your inverts won't survive cooper nor hypo (maybe). Dipping would possibly help the fish but the display remains infected. You should QT all the fish and treat in the QT and leave the display without fish (fallow) for 4 weeks? (I forget the timeframe offhand).

Qt-ing before putting fish in the display is the recommended way to avoid where you're at now.

If i Hypo the main, do i have to make the drastic change in salinity right away or can i do it slowly. Reason i am asking is because i have to wait for my RO/DI water to be produced. Also if i do do a drastic change will my fish survive it? And my PH in the Display is 8.2, but my ro/di water is 7.4, do i buy something from the LFS to raise it to match my display?

[melosu58]

IMO you cant treat the main. You need to QT the fish and treat. I dont encourage FW dips esp. in this case as captain said all you are going to do is reintroduce it back into the tank. Any inverts in the tank and LR will be lost if you treat the main. JMO.

[solidsnakejv]

Originally Posted by melosu58

IMO you cant treat the main. You need to QT the fish and treat. I dont encourage FW dips esp. in this case as captain said all you are going to do is reintroduce it back into the tank. Any inverts in the tank and LR will be lost if you treat the main. JMO.

So my best case scenario is to do Hypo to the main tank. Seems like i will lose my inverts, but not the live rock right.

Also if i do quarantine the fish, is it just the tang or all of them? and wouldn't i be putting them back into the main tank anyway once the treatment is done. Since i wouldn't treat the main in order not to lose the live rock.

[melosu58]

NO IMO you need to treat hypo in a QT. You`ll need to keep the main fishless for 6-8 weeks to break the life cycle of the parasite.

[solidsnakejv]

Originally Posted by melosu58

NO IMO you need to treat hypo in a QT. You`ll need to keep the main fishless for 6-8 weeks to break the life cycle of the parasite.

If i hypo the main, would i lose the LR?

[Zer0]

They repeated it multiple times, that treating anything in the main tank would kill mostly everything you have in there. Whether it be copper or hypo. Your inverts and LR would die from the copper treatment and the hypo treatment. Your best bet now, is to use a QT if you want to save anything at all.. If your content with losing everything in your tank besides the fish.. then that's up to you.. but you would be losing everything you've gained in that tank. Nothing in that tank besides the fish are affected by the ich parasite.. so for you to go and destroy the entire tank, just because you are too lazy to QT your fish.. or just don't want to.. would be very irresponsible and a complete waste IMO. I've seen it done before multiple times and its a very sad story.

[solidsnakejv]

Originally Posted by Zer0

They repeated it multiple times, that treating anything in the main tank would kill mostly everything you have in there. Whether it be copper or hypo. Your inverts and LR would die from the copper treatment and the hypo treatment. Your best bet now, is to use a QT if you want to save anything at all.. If your content with losing everything in your tank besides the fish.. then that's up to you.. but you would be losing everything you've gained in that tank. Nothing in that tank besides the fish are affected by the ich parasite.. so for you to go and destroy the entire tank, just because you are too lazy to QT your fish.. or just don't want to.. would be very irresponsible and a complete waste IMO. I've seen it done before multiple times and its a very sad story.

That's exactly why i am doing my research so i take the best case scenario option. I don't wanna lose what i have in the tank at all specially the live rock. so what do you think is best.

1. Move the fish to a 30 gallon container and put a heater/powerhead in there and a HOB filter and Hypo them there.

2. Move all the live rock to the container along with the crabs and snails and some of the sand. and treat the fish in the main tank. If i take this option should i live the bioballs in the main or move some or all of them to the container with the live rock so taht they bacteria doesn't die.

[melosu58]

Option 1 by far.

[solidsnakejv]

Can i use the protein skimmer as the filter for the QT container, or does that need to stay in the main tank?

[melosu58]

Read this

An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Cure: A Quarantine Tank for Everything by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com

[solidsnakejv]

Okay, do i QT'ng the yellow tang only, or all the other fish as well. The other fish don't have any black spots, i've checked them therally.
Can i do the tang only, and wait for the next fish to be infected appears, or should i do the Hypo to all fish even if they r not infected now.

[melosu58]

Need to do all of them. if you do one fish then put him back in with the others he will be re infected again.

[divedeep1689]

listen to mike if you leave any fish in the display tank your not breaking the cycle of the ich, so either the other fish will get it or as soon as you put the tang back he will get it again.

[InfernoST]

I'm doing the hypo treatment now myself for ich and am in the third week and all of the ich is gone already on the fish in QT but have to wait 2 to 3 weeks more to give the DT time. Hypo is the way to go and doesn't stress the fish because it's easier for them to breathe in the lower salinity thus using less energy. 1st off you're going to need a refractometer not a hydrometer because those darn things are just not accurate. Your goal is to get the water down to 1.009 but between 1.007 to 1.009 is good (mine is at 1.008 ), but it has to be done in increments. What I did was fill my QT with water from the DT and took some LR and put it in with them along with a heater, light and a small HOB filter I picked up for 30 bucks then every 12hrs you have to replace 20% of the water with treated RO until you reach the target SG. The SG must be below 1.010 but not lower than 1.007. Once you get there you must keep up with the water tests because you will either experience a mini cycle Like I am or a full blown cycle which we all know is extremely stressful for the fish. I'm doing 50% PWC every other day which is keeping the parameters in check. Once again don't attempt hypo without a refractometer.

[Zer0]

What Inferno said is probably your best bet. I would do exactly what he said because he is going through that process right now, and there's no one better to take advice from then someone who is going through the same thing that you are. Great advice Inferno.

[InfernoST]

Thanks Zero.

[InfernoST]

SolidsnakeJV is that from the Video game? I almost forgot, after the treatment is completed and it's time to bring the fish back up to the correct salinity you cannot do it as quickly as you did reducing the salinity, it has to be done much slower in order to allow the fish to adjust because as you increase the salinity your fish are going to have to work harder to breathe and are going to use much more energy to do it. If you don't rush anything you'll be just fine. IMO It's more stressful on us than the fish.

[solidsnakejv]

Thanks for the input guys. I'm going to pick up a 30 gallon tank that i have at my grandmother's house on Thursday and i will set it up on Friday. I have the tang a fresh water bath today and all the spots are gone, but i trust you guys and i know they'll come back, at which point i will QT all of them and give them the Hypo.

By the way, i had to move all my rock in order to catch it, but i didn't mind since i wanted to find my six line wrasse that i bought last week and haven't seen it since. Bad news was, i didn't fine it anywhere. I wonder if it dugged itself really deep in the sandbed since i read somewhere that they are knwo to burried themselves at times.