tang with ich still eats anything help!!!!!

[ktm]

HI I have a hippo tang. water temp is 79 deg. i had him in quarantine for 3weeks with copper. no ich. i put him in my display tank now he has ich. i have been giving him crush garlic from the store with his food. mysis, brime, cyclopeeze, nori with garlic, flake with garlic. he has been in the display for 5 days now. what should i do? maybe put him back in quarantine, or should i get garlic extract. maybe a uv steralizer.

[Original Fin]

A couple things...

It's good that you are using a quarantine tank, but three weeks of copper treatment is too long...bad for the fish at that point. Also, 3 weeks in QT is not long enough to guarantee that ich is no longer present...need to double it to 6 weeks.

Now, assuming your diagnosis of ich is correct...the problem is, you have ich in the display tank, so the parasites will continue to infest the tank as long as there are hosts (fish). The lifecycle of the parasite is such that you may be tricked into thinking it''s gone, when in fact it is just in a dormant stage. You may not see white specs on your fish, because the parasite larvae is cooking in the sandbed or rock. When they emerge, they need to find a host within a relatively short period of time to survive and propogate.

You need to remove all fish from the tank, treat and QT them, and do not return them to the DT for a minimum of 6 weeks. If at any point in quarantine you notice ich parasites have returned, (or any other disease for that matter) treat again, and restart the clock.
Do not use any meds in the display tank whether or not they claim to be reef safe.

Please be absolutely sure to read the pertinent sticky threads in this forum...it is all explained in detail.

Good luck!

[ktm]

i only have a 20 gallon quarantine. its to small for 5 fish

[Original Fin]

It would seem there's little alter alternative but to set up a larger, or multiple quarantines. It's all or nothing I'm afraid. To QT and treat one fish and then return it to an ich infested tank doesn't make sense either.