Hippo tang and ICH

[quakana]

Hello all I am new to the forum

I have been doing salt tanks for about three years now
I have a 55 gallon FOWLR snails crabs brittle star and a cleaner shrimp

one inch clown, 4 inch foxface, 3 inch Copperband butterfly, and a 2 inch purple firefish

ammonia =0 nitrate = 0 nitrate = 10


The tang has ich. No other fish show any signs of it. It showed up a week ago, so I have been putting metro, focus and garlic guard in their vaired mix of frozen food and have been trating the tank with kich ich

the tang got better looking to where the were almost no signs and then today it came back and he is rubbing up against the rocks to scratch

My question is this

Should I remove the tang to spare the other fish or is it too late and will the other fish eventually get it and die either way?

I do not have a QT tank setup so its not an option.

[leebca]

Assuming you've made the proper diagnosis and it is Marine Ich (Cryptocaryon irritans) then I can safely say that all fish need to be considered infected. The fish (one or more) may develop a resistance to the parasite, but the parasite will remain in your aquarium unless you kill it or starve it (by removing all fishes for 8 weeks).

The treatments you've tried, as you've discovered, are not working. None of them are the best treatment.

They all need a proper treatment. You may wish to read some additional information here: Marine Ich - Myths and Facts

[quakana]

Thanks Lee. I have removed the Hippo from the tank over a week ago. A purple firefish, a small clown and a Foxface still reside in the tank with no signs of diease.

Prior to removing the Hippo the white spots got real bad and he was scratching against the rocks.

If the ICH is still in the tank would i have seen signs on the other fish by now?

PS Great article on Ich


Thanks
Dave

[leebca]

Not necessarily, Dave. Remember, it only takes one to live on. They like to hide in the gills. What your fish have is a low level infection, laying in wait for the fish to become stressed or for new fish to be added so that they can bloom again. Remember the words in that post: Seeing isn't believing.

[quakana]

So if I added no more new fish, possibly in 11 months the ich will wear itself out and be gone?

[leebca]

You are almost correct. It would be a bit better to say something like, "If I added no new Marine Ich, then after 11 months the Marine Ich now there would no longer be infective."

The above takes into account that Marine Ich can be carried not only by infected fishes, but by adding infected water, and by adding organisms where their water is carrying the parasite, or they themselves have some cysts attached to them. Saying it the above way includes putting in live rock from infected systems, in addition to fishes. The goal is to introduce no new Marine Ich parasites, by any means to the system.

[quakana]

Lee I would also like to know your thoughts on UV sterlization for this issue as I am running a 15 watt with a small (400GPH) powerhead.


oops!

[leebca]

Dave,

I think you might have missed that I moved your post and replied to it here: A New Start

[anthias]

hello all

I have a case realeted to the fourm.
my show tank looked very nice and healthy for many months , then I but one new hypo tang (the hypo tang was in qt for 3 months it is very healthy)
then the hypo tang start to show white spots ,then I new that I have hidden parasite in my show tank and all my old fishes had a resistanse to it.
what I did is nothing only doing my best to keep my water quality good, the hypo tang is devolping a resistance and now he dosent show any white spots .

and here is a photo after he eats too much and you can see that he is fat.

[leebca]

Actually, your Blue Tang is showing signs of MHLLE. One of the causative factors attributed to MHLLE is stress. The stress of illness combined with the average stresses of captivity, could be a source of this fish's condition.

Unfortunately, many people think the way to handle the Marine Ich infestation is to do exactly as you have done. Hope for the best, keep up good water quality and nourishment, and do nothing. After all, it is a relatively easy thing to do -- nothing. But the subtlety of the matter is that the fishes are diseased and it doesn't take much for them to show it in either spots or some other means. It would be very common to see spots again after introducing another fish, with potential fish losses later on.

Usually the aquarist who takes this direction finds that the fish in the aquarium don't live as long as they should in captivity or like your Blue Tang, begin to show signs of other illnesses or conditions. Unfortunately, some aquarist don't care about this or ignore this, too.

But one must ask the question. . .why quarantine your fish if you have disease in the main display? Of course there are many, many reasons to perform a quarantine process, but a disease-free aquarium is within your grasp since you go through a quarantine process.

Additional information about MHLLE:
Marine Head & Lateral Line Erosion: A Description of the Syndrome and a Review of its Speculated Causes by Steven Pro - Reefkeeping.com

[anthias]

hi lee
lee I m realy stressd because of my tank , thats why I can not do any thing now, beause last time I move all my live rockes (100 kg) and keep them in QT for mor than 2 monthes and treat all the show tank with copper (all the fishes ) then it looked very healthy so I returnd the live rockes and anemones , every thing looks fine til I bring the hippo tang.

[leebca]

I understand. Sorry.

There are only about 3 main possibilities:

1. The display tank wasn't made free of Marine Ich;
2. The Tang wasn't disease free when it went into the display tank; or
3. If 1. and 2. aren't correct, then somehow the display tank got some Marine Ich into it by contamination from something else.

Those are the most likely scenarios.

If you can still guarantee no further contamination by sick fish additions or adding anything that may contain Marine Ich, the Ich should weaken over the months until after about 10 months the Ich can't infect the fishes anymore. That is one other approach. But you really want to try and figure out which one (or more) of the above 3 happened.

[anthias]

thank you very much lee I think it is the first choice because the tang is about one month in the show tank and it is the only fish that affected .
I have read littel about the mhlle but realy I hope and I thing my fishes are not affected with ,the fishes I saw are very uglly and diseased but my fishes are beutiful I ll show you all of them in another thread .