HELP!!! Powder Blue with ICH??

[lostatsea]

Please Help!!

We have a powder blue tang that has recently developed what looks like ICH. There are white spots all over it's body and of course appear worse under actinic lighting.

Should this fish be removed immediately? Will it infect the whole tank? Has anyone ever just "left a fish with spots" and it recovers? Even if we remove it now...has the damage already been done?

Thanks.

[dwerbs]

from what I understand the ich is already in your tank before you saw the spots. So the tank is infected already but fish can fight ich off normally so it is only when a fish is stressed from something that they normally develope ich, and they can't fight it off.

[CrazyFish]

How long have you had this Powder Blue? Theres always ich present in your tank. If you fish gets stressed its more and likey to get ich. Tangs are the worst. Im sure you find the ich to be bad in the morning. I would try this product.
http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/store_pages/product-info.php?product_ID=k-gx01 ich hates garlic.

It will help(garlic) and turn the temp of your tank up as high as you can, depending on what you have in the tank. Dont remove your fish, this will cause more stress and your fish will die.
If you have the money the best teatment is a good UV Sterlizer.

[lostatsea]

We actually just bought the fish...so I know it would be stressed from that alone. Our tank has been "ich free" for a number of years...so I don't believe it was in the tank.

Best advice then is to just leave the fish alone and hope that it can fight it off. Would trying to catch it only make matters worse? If all the other "old" fish are healthy would they catch it?

Thanks.

[Stones]

Almost every new tang, angel or butterfly I've brought into my display tank has developed ich to some degree shortly after being introduced. This is typically normal for these species and it seems that powder blue tangs are especially prone to the ich. I had one a few years ago that took over 2 months to finally get over the ich.

Like Darren said, do not remove the fish from your display tank as this would cause the fish significantly more stress. Stress from shipping was what most likely brought on the case of ich in the first place so additional stress should be avoided. If at all possible, try not to do any work with your hands inside the tank for the next few days as well. Leaving the tang with ich in your tank shouldn't affect the other fish already in there as their immune systems should be healthy enough to fight off any of the parasites.

I would also recommend installing a good UV sterilizer to help control the ich outbreak, although their effectiveness against ich seems to be somewhat contraversial amongst marine hobbyists. From my own experience, I wasn't able to keep a tang successfully until I installed one.

The last thing you should try is feeding vitamin supplemented food to your fish. Using additives like Selcon and any type of Garlic additive seem to always help fish get over the ich faster than feeding regular frozen or dry food. I think that New Life Spectrum even produces a pelleted food now that helps marine fish combat parasitic organisms.

Hope the info helps put your mind at ease, as ich is more commonly an "inconvience" than a deadly plague.

[lostatsea]

Thanks Stones...I figured I wasn't the only one out there with this problem...we may try the garlic supplement and we DO have a UV sterlizer, but we may need to be a little more on top of that. We also have a purple tang and a hippo tang...so I think tangs can survive in our tank. We just never really had this happen before. :worried:

Thanks again.

[gadgetguy]

Actually, ich is always in an aquarium, fresh or salt, it just become prevalent when a fish is stressed because that's when they're more immune.

You've just done a good job keeping your tank conditions good the last couple years and it's just that the stress of shipping plus the fact that it's a tang caused it to contract it.

Hope it gets better! :)

[Jon123]

I would recommend reading Fenner's wetwebmedia entry for marine ich : http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ichartmar.htm

Theres alot of myths about ich running around for some reason. I like how Fenner atleast touches on most of them. Most commercial medications will not cure ich. Ich is NOT always present in a tank (which doesnt make sense at all from a parasitology perspective, as a parasite needs a host to survive, and if it cannot find or attach to said host, it will die). And finally, UV sterilizers have been scientifically proven to be ineffective at parasite control in marine aquaria (although they are not completely worthless). I did some extensive research into this and found a number of published research papers in respected journals on the subject.

Here is a rather simple one that is available to the public for free. It was published way back in 1981, but more recent research on the subject is much more complicated and fairly hard to understand. Its not 100% applicable, but the main idea is the same.
http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps/6/m006p295.pdf

Jon

[lostatsea]

Just an update on our Powder Blue. The "ICH" appears to be diminishing...or at least he doesn't seem AS iched over. We are hoping for the best. Can it start to clear up that quickly even though we haven't done anything?

[scary gary]

I've had fish get ich and I've never done anything and it almost always cleared by itself.

[lostatsea]

ALL our fish have ICH in a severe way. At first cycle it was only the Powder BLue, now the purple tang, hippo tang, juv emporer, foxface, lionfish, cleaner wrasse, square spot anthias, flame angel and a couple of the little guys (chromis & "nemos") They are really iched over...almost fuzzy looking, but still eating well enough. We are going to try and catch and put in a quarantine tank and treat with copper. Any suggestions or recommendations as we are really not sure if this is the way to go? We don't want to loose our whole tank :sadday: !

Thanks.

[Brettriehl101]

wow that must be pretty bad if the clowns and chromis got it too.. i thought those guys could withstand just about anything...

[Jan]

You could still try MEDIC by Polyp Lab. Colby sells it.By the sounds of things the best would be to treat in a quarantine tank..but just to catch them all...then also to have a quarantine tank large enough to house them without stressing them some more.You'll need a copper test kit if you are going to treat with Copper.And you'll need to keep the quality of water high in your quarantine by water changes.The only other way other than copper is hyposalinity (gradually lowering salinity to 1.010 for 14 days) in a quarantine tank for which you will need a good refractometer.
Good luck.

[Gonefishing]

If the ich is really bad & they could die from it then removing them for copper treatment may be best, it would be the fastest. You can only judge how bad it is. It will stress them but if leaving them in the tank could mean death then speedy treatment may be necessary.


I know some people who use copper with good results so you could try it & it should be easy to find. Follow the directions for treatment. I have never used copper myself I have used Formalin with good results but its really toxic & Im not sure you can find it anymore for that reason. Hopefully someone with copper experience can chime in.


I have used Medic with no results even was corresponding with the tecs a Polyp-Lab they were very helpful but it didn't work for me. They said it doesnt always work in every tank.

I also suggest getting a fare sized uv light running on your main tank 24/7 asap. All I use is a uv, when I add a fish & see a spot or 2 I run the uv for a couple days & ich is gone. I have had ich in my tank real bad befor & there are many ways to treat ich & some do work, but these are my suggestions.

[tango]

I have a Jumbo bottle of kick the ICH ( that is invertebrate friendly) doesn't contain any copper that I am willing to sell just PM me.

[tcharger67]

hahah after reading this i know exactly how you feel i had the same thing happen to me when i first started out a blue tang with ich... killed off the majority of my tank... only survivors were a yellow tang, and two clown fish... not to scare you or anything. I know a lot of people on the site will disagree with this but i had it happen a second time and knowing what i did from the first incident i had read up on hypo salinity.
I got a naso tang and it covered the tank in ich... so i removed all my corals to my 33 gallon i had kicking around, added a old seaclone skimmer to it, and moved the majority of my live rock over set up my lights ontop and left it... in the main tank i removed water and set it into the 33 gallon not to upset any of the rock or corals... i left a small amount of rock in and of course the fish... then with the water that was removed i replaced it with ro di water... nothing else and over 2 days dropped the salinity to 1.006 yes that low... then raised the tempreture a few degrees to speed up the cycle. i noticed by the next day all of the ich had changed stages and hit the water column. i left both tanks as is for 28 days because i had read that there are different species of ich and marine species cannot survive in low salinity... the main tank had no loses and the 33 gallon because there was no host the ich died off. Now im sure i could be way off and this could be just an old wives tale... but for me it did the trick and im happy with the result.

[lostatsea]

Lost the Powder Blue. He seemed OK yesterday afternoon....ICH was cleared off and then he just laid down and died. That quick. I guess he had had enough.

Next BIG question. With the ICH cycle...the Powder Blue had first had it. It "cleared" up for about a week. THEN the second cycle which has lasted about a week (everyone spotted). Now they seem to be getting better again. now with the next cycle does it just keep getting worse. Should we do emergency measures? MAN this is frustrating. Just when we think we should pull everyone out they seem to "look" better. Then it is "Do we stress them out by pulling". Are they developing an immunity?

Oh yeah, we have been treating with MED ICH for about 9 days with no UV as that is what is recommended.

Thanks again for all your response and suggestions.

[Jan]

MEDIC says to use for 10 days.Good to hear there is some improvement.You could also try Seachem's Metronidazole.
http://www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/Metronidazole.html

Bayside may have some left.
The problem with lowering salinity (removing all rock,inverts to another tank) is there would still be critters in your sand bed that can not tolerate low salinity,they would die and cause pollution.But I suppose if you did lots of water changes it might work.It would sure be easier to catch rock and corals than fish.
How big is your tank?

[lostatsea]

Jan

We were considering the removal of the rocks. I guess for the minimal inverts that we have it would be okay and we could probably catch them anyway.

We have 155 bow front with sump. so probably about 200 gals all said and done.

Does that mean the ICH is going away?
Thanks.

[Jan]

Difficult to say if it is going away....but improving is a plus.How deep is your sand bed? If it is 1 inch or so you might be okay trying the hyposalinity in the main tank. I actually had not heard of doing this before tcharger67 's suggestion.Usually it is suggested removing the fish.Treating the fish out of the main tank and leaving it empty of fish for 6 weeks or so ,there would be less chance of reinfection.
I read a thread about removing fish from the main tank. It still involves removing the rocks and most of the water into tubs.Leave a depression in your sand bed...the fish will congregate there. They should then be much easier to catch...then you can treat them with cupramine or the hyposalinity.Either one works.
I guess you need to decide for yourself which method is best for you.
keep us posted.

[Gonefishing]

I have done the hyposalinity method & its works good, only drawbacks are the time needed to lower the salinity & the amount of water needed to bring it down & then back up, & it is stress full to fish & not all fish can handle low salinity (I think its gobies, I cant remember).

If the fish are infected badly then you may not get it low enough fast enough to kill the ich & you still could loose fish. I would suggest removing fish & treating in a different tank if you want to do a low salinity also with less water volume its easier to do, this is what I did & I was happy with the results in a 30g. But once I got my uv running I never had to worry again.

[tcharger67]

hey hows the fish situation comming... i read a couple threads about the hypo salinity... thought i would just throw in what type of fish i had when i did the hypo salinity the second time... i had a citron goby, a naso tang, yellow tang, powder blue tang, copper band butterfly(very suprised it never stopped eating or anything) fox face and 2 perculas. not sure if you have any of these fish but i know at least the copper band should not have been able to survive the low salinity but it did... but i never stressed the fish by removing it from its tank either. just a little fyi hope it helps

[lostatsea]

Stressful....it wasn't a very nice long weekend at all. After watching our Anthias die and the lionfish start to look horrible we decided to take drastic measures and get everyone out of the tank. One day they would look fine and the next "Very" sick. Needless to say we caught every last fish and have them in a copper treated tank. Yes they do appear stressed. The Lionfish died our cleaner wrassed appears to be suffering. The Juv emporer angel is not the best...everyone else is hanging in there (I think).

Now in the treated tank....do we keep the protein skimmer going? When we first dosed and tested for the copper it was what it should be. Yesterday when we tested it again the test was almost negative. Do we NOT use the protein skimmer? Should we keep dosing with copper until we maintain .25 for 2 days? Before proceeding to the higher dose?

The remaining fish are a Purple Tang, Juv Emp, regal tang, flame angel, 3 perculas, cleaner wrasse, 3 chromis.

We have in a seperate tank 2 scissortale goby, pink & blue spot and a yellow watchman.

Frustrating...just makes a person want to sell the whole setup.

Thanks.

[Jan]

Yes, you can use the protein skimmer but no chemical filtration(carbon). Be sure you have an active biological filter(sponge)..if not maybe someone could give you theirs.Keep your copper at the dose reccommended on your bottle.You might need to test 1x-2x daily.Also test for ammonia. You may need to change water 1x-2x/wk,which again means adjusting your copper so it stays at the proper range...too high it will affect the fish,too low the ICH will not be killed.

[Jon123]

Frustrating...just makes a person want to sell the whole setup.



I'm sure we have all been in similar situations. Quite a few years ago I added a saddle wrasse to my tank and ich hit all my fish. I lost 6 fish, all of which were over 5 years old, except for said saddle wrasse. Horrible ordeal, but you definitely learn from the experience.

Since then I've given all new fish a 'freshwater bath' before adding them to my tank, and I have probably purchased a good 20 fish without seeing any major disease outbreaks. Might be something to consider for the future.

I have never used copper, but I have had 100% success with hypo, lowering to 1.015 over approx. 24h. All mild cases of ich however.

In any event, good luck with your fish, I know exactly how stressful it is...my softshell turtle cut its shell last week and the cut became severely infected. He seems to be doing good now, and the wound is healing, although I think there may be a nasty scar :thumbsdow . Time will tell.

Jon

[lostatsea]

Sorry to hear about your turtle...How did his shell crack?

Yes we will definitely do things different now. Is it just for 24HRS to do the hyposalinity? We still have all the gobies that we are NOT treating with copper.

We also have a bit of a miracle fish...we had a cleaner wrasse that we had thrown in the copper tank(oops). Last night he was on the bottom covered in slime and looked dead. When we caught him, he twitched and so we threw him into the tank with the gobies (non treated). Now he is swimming around like nothing happened.:Clapping: WOW!!

Thanks again.

[Jan]

You need to also do hyposalinity for 14 days.(1.009..you need a refractometer). Gradually lower salinity over 2 to 3 days.When bringing back up ,it needs to be slower (.001-.002)/day..
Some folks reccommend that even after the treatment period whether copper or hyposalinity,one should maintain the fish in quarantine for another 4 weeks.Anyway,the display tank needs to be without fish for at least 4 weeks.

[Jon123]

Sorry to hear about your turtle...How did his shell crack?

It's a soft-shell turtle, which doenst have the horney scales or scutes on its shell like most turtles, but rather leathery skin. The skin covering the shell had a deep gash from a rock while I was trying to catch the turtle to do my yearly 100% waterchange. These things generally heal up fine on their own, but the poorer water quality from the newly re-setup tank probably caused infection. He has been treated and all signs of infection are gone. I've been dosing stress coat daily to try and reduce scaring as much as possible. We will see how it turns out.

Is it just for 24HRS to do the hyposalinity? We still have all the gobies that we are NOT treating with copper.

I lowered the salinity to the desired level over a 24h period then kept it there for a couple weeks. I used a normal hydrometer to do this, as I was treating hardy fish (lions, triggers, clown, damsel, squirrelfish) and knew they could handle a less than precise treatment. With hardy species, I believe ridding them of disease asap can be worth a little extra environmental stress.

Most reef gobies are often closely associated with invertebrates so I'd guess they are less tolerant to salinity changes than some other fish, so I'd go slower and more maticulous unless you find information that points otherwise.

Jan seems to know what he is saying so perhaps consider using his/her method.

We also have a bit of a miracle fish...we had a cleaner wrasse that we had thrown in the copper tank(oops). Last night he was on the bottom covered in slime and looked dead. When we caught him, he twitched and so we threw him into the tank with the gobies (non treated). Now he is swimming around like nothing happened.:Clapping: WOW!!

Fish's first level of defense against parasites is the slime coat. When stressed, fish produce excess slime to have both an extra thick layer of protection, and potentially shed parasites that lose their grasp. Very similar to why our nose runs. I would not consider it 'cured' and keep an eye on the wrasse, just incase.

[Jan]

Thanks Jon123,(I am she)
With over 20 years of marine tanks, I have had my share of ICH.Most of it due to ignorance.Never had access to internet..Now I am convinced we should utilize quarantine tanks..that being said I do not even listen to what I preach.Usually I quarantine fish for 4 weeks ,but if it has been in a dealer's tank for a week or two and shows no sign of ICH I will put it into my display....all the time stressing myself out and telling myself "why didn't you put it into quarantine?"I have read a Zillion posts re Ich and the only proven cure is hypo or copper.
I have used both methods (hyposalinity and copper)with %100 results.
At this moment I have a fish I bought one week ago that I saw had ICH when I bought it. I wanted to get to the ICH ASAP so I decided to go with cupramine(supposed to be easier on the fish than other copper treatments.)It is in a 25 gal.Even with one fish,the tank has ammonia and I have had to do a water change with then an adjustment on the copper.
Hyposalinity is probably safer for the fish....but seems to be more labor intensive.

[lostatsea]

Thanks Jan

We decided to go with Cupramine...we just couldn't stand there and watch them "hurt". Anyway....one question how do you maintain the level of cupramine in the tank. We dosed yesterday and today there is no reading to it. Do we just keep adding every day until there is a reading?
We don't want to overdose and since this is our first go at this...we are pretty clueless. Thank goodness for internet and this site!!

We definitely will go with the quarantine tank after this!!! It is just not worth the stress and ALLLLLLL the extra work. Boy it certainly becomes labor intensive with the water changes, monitoring, stress esp the stress.
Thanks.

[Jan]

What else do you have in the tank other than fish .? What are you using as a biological filter? If you have sand and/or rock ,that might be binding up the copper.I use an aquaclear powerfilter with sponge that I took from one of my other tanks.I guess you would gradually increase the copper until you had a reading. Scary...I am using a Salifert Copper test kit.

[lostatsea]

Okay we have a couple terra cota pots, some substrate (very little) and just a couple pieces of live rock. We also have the powerfilter with a sponge. This was all salvaged from the display tank (except for power filter)....as we did not have a quarantine tank set up. So it was an emergency set up. We will not take anything and put it back. This HAS become our quarantine. We are also using the Salifert Copper test kit. At one point it had registered so we know that it DOES work.

So just keep adding? Same dose?

[Jan]

Yes. i would think..keep adding ..maybe .2 ml at a time.How big is your quarantine?

[Jan]

I'm thinking you should remove your rock and substrate. Exchange the pots for PVC .You can get larger pieces like sewer plumbing if your fish are large.Double up on the sponge.Was your sponge already an active filter? If not maybe you could get one from someone .Your quarantine tank is now a hospital so should have inert things in it.
Don't forget to check your ammonia. Have lots of salt water mixed and ready for changes.Then you need to keep rechecking your copper level.

[lostatsea]

There is very little rock 1 or 2 small (baseball size) pieces and a sifting of substrate. We do have a couple pieces of PVC...we just thought for the fish to be less stressed out we would add that. We have lots of water mixed and ready to go. The filter sponge we were using used to be for the "old" tank we had. It has not been used since about Jan 1 and has been thoroughly rinsed. We have been daily checking Nitrite, Ammonia and Nitrates.
Thanks for all your help.

Oh yeah, we have the bottom half of a 90 gal tank filled. We only had a 10 gal and thought the fish would be in too close confines, besides we are using that one for the gobies. We also do have a 25 gal tank, but until yesterday housed our pond fish. Do you think it would be wise to stress them out once more and transfer them into the 25 gal smaller tank?

[Jan]

By active sponge filter I meant that it was being used up until you put it on the quarantine.ie presently in use on a set up tank.I guess as long as your ammonia and nitrites are controlled by water changes you should be okay...
Read over the link that JON123 gave. From there ,there is alot of information that you can go cross eyed reading. I'm going to see if I can find another couple of articles.
The 90 gal is good.There must be quite a drop from the powerfilter to the surface of the water if it is only half full.
How are the fish doing?It is reccommended that you don't use rock or substrate cause it affects the copper readings.

[Jan]

This is very good.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

[Jan]

And this one.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.php

[lostatsea]

Yeah there is a bit of a drop...but we have rigged it up in a basket and it is working. As for reading...it is mind boggling and of course one site says this and then another contradicts it.
The fish seem to be stressed (especially the fox face and hippo tang). The other guys seem to be okay...their color sure looks alot better. The foxface and hippo aren't too interested in eating, but we are hoping they will soon start. Everyone else is hanging in there.

Thanks again Jan.

[Jan]

The ich spots should be gone in a couple of days if the copper is at the right level.

[lostatsea]

Actually the ICH spots are already gone...after first dose of cupramine. The fish all have very nice vibrant colors and we are unable to see spots. The battle isn't over yet though. Thanks again for all your help.

[Jon123]

So how is the ich treatment going?

Jon

[lostatsea]

Thanks for asking. We are just trying to maintain a constant reading of the Cupramine. We initially had very light dusting of substrate and a piece of live rock. We were having trouble maintaining any form of copper level so we removed everything. Now we only have PVC pipe. The fish all appear okay and have started eating again. Not as agressively as before....but they are eating!! If we can maintain the copper for the next 2 days then we will up the dose to the 2nd stage. Hopefully after the two weeks all will be well. We lost a lionfish, cleaner wrasse, powder blue and anthias and are just praying that is it.

We are doing small water changes every 2nd day and testing on a daily basis. Life at our house sure is busy....I can't wait to just sit in front of the display tank and actually see some fish!!