Powder Brown with Ich

[Aquatic_Adam]

Hey everyone. My eyes must not be what they used to be but I didn't see the Ich until my girlfriend came home and pointed it out. Poor guy has it all over him. He is acting normal. No clamped fins, swimming actively, pecking at the rocks for food. Should I let him work it out on his own since his behavior is normal? Should I move him to the QT or will that stress be too much?


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[Marty.h]

Moving to QT can be stressful and to do it properly all your fish stock will need moving to QT and your DT left fallow for at least 12 weeks.


If he is not covered in it you have 2 choices either keep feeding heavy to keep his energy up dim your lights as much as you can depends on what corals you keep on how dim they can go if FOWLR put the tank on blues this will lower the stress and keep your hands out of the water to keep stress down and hopefully he will shake it off.

Or remove to QT which will stress him and potentially make it worse.

 

[Aquatic_Adam]

Moving to QT can be stressful and to do it properly all your fish stock will need moving to QT and your DT left fallow for at least 12 weeks.


If he is not covered in it you have 2 choices either keep feeding heavy to keep his energy up dim your lights as much as you can depends on what corals you keep on how dim they can go if FOWLR put the tank on blues this will lower the stress and keep your hands out of the water to keep stress down and hopefully he will shake it off.

Or remove to QT which will stress him and potentially make it worse.

Thank you for answering. I decided to go the middle route.

My reef tank is still very young so the corals and inverts I have in there are nothing fancy. I bought some antiproazoan medicine and food binder so that I can attempt to target feed the Tang and minimize losses of anything else. Also bought 2 more Skunk Cleaner Shrimp to hopefully prompt him to use them. The hope is that them cleaning him will lower the amount that can reproduce in the substrate.


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[Marty.h]

Target feeding can be stressful if the fish is not use to it if he is happy to feed as he normally does then stick with that to not stress him.

I personally would not add any meds to the water if he is still feeding well without target feeding keep the food going in and dim your lighting

 

[PB_Smith]

Thank you for answering. I decided to go the middle route.

My reef tank is still very young so the corals and inverts I have in there are nothing fancy. I bought some antiproazoan medicine and food binder so that I can attempt to target feed the Tang and minimize losses of anything else. Also bought 2 more Skunk Cleaner Shrimp to hopefully prompt him to use them. The hope is that them cleaning him will lower the amount that can reproduce in the substrate.


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you say you added two MORE cleaner shrimp?
You can NOT keep more than two of them in a tank or two will pair off and kill the others.

I recently added a powder brown that introduced ich, then marine velvet to my system, lost everything but a damsel and a wrasse.
The problem is that by having that one susceptible fish (the tang) in there it just kept getting re-infected until the population of the parasites grew to numbers that overcame the other healthy fish.

This dance lasted 3 weeks and in the third week I lost 1-2 a day.
If at all possible I would treat the tang in a QT tank or you may enjoy the same disaster I did

 

[Marty.h]

you say you added two MORE cleaner shrimp?
You can NOT keep more than two of them in a tank or two will pair off and kill the others

I totally disagree I have 6 cleaner shrimp in my system and a fire shrimp and have done for a year with no issues at all.

 

[Marty.h]

I presently have ich in my system it's been noticeable for quite a few weeks now but my stock of tangs is

Gold Rim Tang
Jewel Tang
Yellow Tang
Salefin Tang
Kole Tang

So having that many in the system does up the chances some what especially the Gold rim but I have opted to just feed heavy and all are still feeding very well the only tang that has show Ich is the Gold rim the others have remained totally unaffected.

Then there stress levels are 0 and they are fed well and are nice chunky healthy fish the yellow amd sailfin are at least 1 inch thick.

I personally think it's sitting in most systems waiting to strike and looking for the fish that is weak just keep feeding and keep that stress level down.

 

[coralbandit]

I have had up to 12 cleaner shrimp in a 75g.
It took over two years to deplete to only 1....
The shrimp will offer no real help for ich IMO.
I DON'T GO for let it go or it will be ok when it comes to ich.
Not even a little!
I lost a tank full of fish($$$) when I added a cheveron to my powder blue in a 120(4 foot /my fault)...
Only 3 'sure fire ' ways to eliminate ich ,not neglect it into hiding,which may be why some think it is in all tanks?....
If you didn't use one of these methods or allow total die off of your fish and leave tank fallow for months then you probably DO have ich in your tank IMO.


Copper
Hyposalinity
Transfer method.

Good read for those with ich....
Marine Ich - Myths and Facts | Reef Sanctuary

Most healthy fish may be able to fight it off but part of a tangs defense is to swim up to 25miles daily to get away...
That ain't happening in ANY of our tanks...

IMO tangs in under 6' long tanks are a risk...
More then 1 is doubling the odds against you and the fish...

Just figured one person who is willing to say you are in trouble with the ich if you don't treat it might be an honest refreshing approach to marine ich.
I feel this post will end like most others regarding marine ich....
DEAD FISH!
I laugh at freshwater ich and cringe at the thought it could still be in my 120 reef!
I can't afford it!

 

[PB_Smith]

I totally disagree I have 6 cleaner shrimp in my system and a fire shrimp and have done for a year with no issues at all.

then you have been very lucky;

Science says: Keep no more than two cleaner shrimps per tank — Advanced Aquarist | Aquarist Magazine and Blog

 

[Reefing Madness]

I should take pictures of my stupid Hippo Tang for you guys. Everytime I move the tank or do something to it, she gets ICH, every time!!
What do I do.......Aboslutely NOTHING. She eats and swims around normally, and it will take a month or so, but it will all be gone, and none of my other fat and happy fish will come down with it. This has been going on with her for 4-5 years now, she's still there, and I change nothing because of it.
Oh, and in a large enough tank, throw all the Cleaner Shrimp you can in there, but, once they figure out you feed the tank, and they get left overs, they become lazy.