My blue tang in the early stages of Ich? Is he savable?

[YellowNemo]

Hello every one.

I come to you all in my time of need. I love this website its so informative!

I have a 30Gallon aquarium with an eclipse filter lighting AIO lid on it. I have 6 fish consisting of 1 3 striped damsel fish, 1 blue damsel. 1 6 stripe wrasse, 1 file fish, 1 piccaso trigger, 1 spotted cardinal and 1 blue tang.

 

My blue tang is giving me some concern. I have noticed today what looks like the early stages of ich on my lil guy (hes litteraly a quarter size he's a baby) He has not dipslayed the irraddic swimming or even that he is breathing rediculously heavy, just the spots(white salt size and all over his body). He is among all my other fish and I had just purchased him on wednesday of this week so my questions to every one is.

 

1 How do I effectivly treat the ich(tankwide I guess its a parasite), I have sea stars and crabs in the tank?

2 Will the ich get to my other fish now, or did I catch it early enough?

3 Should I bring him back and see if they will exchange him sence he isnt even a week old?

4 What do you recomend I treat him with?

5 Will the store I got him from treat him for me and how much will it cost?

 

Tank is a td 30 Gal tank with a eclipse lid with light built in as well as biowheel and charcoal filter. I also have 1 atlantic star fish and 4 snails as well as the above mentioned fish, I also have sand(its not live). I have a PH balancer I just put in because the PH was off (i dont know if that matters)

 

 

Thank you all so much in advance

[Ryan_H]

sorry, but tangs that size are pretty much impossible to keep alive in a home aquarium. my coworker put one that size in his perfectly healthy, lightly stocked 90 with tons of live rock and it still stressed out, got ich and died. i would imagine that your tang is also getting picked on by the damsels, trigger, file, or wrasse, which would cause stress and therefore ich. you can try to save it by feeding with frozen brine soaked in garlic and metronidazol, but the medication to save it would probably just stress such a small, delicate fish even more. what are your nitrate levels? how much live rock do you have? tangs need very low nitrate levels and plenty of live rock so that they can constantly graze for proper nutrition. and the trigger and file, by the way, are going to outgrow that 30 pretty quickly, as well as the tang if he lives.

 

good luck!

[Toomin]

i counted 7 fishes.even so, if you want to keep a tang in a 30g(shhh.hush) you should try with only the sole tang in it.

[reffer9391]

OMG

1. A tang that small isnt a good pick (there easy to die of stress)

2. Added 7 fish to a 30g all at once

3. 3-4 fish (not sure what wrasse you have) will outgrow your tank once larger.

 

Have you done any reasearch or learned anything about the file and trigger fishes?

[slclink]

First off your tank is overstocked and the fish will out grow it soon so i hopw you have a plan for a relocation. I had an ich outbreak with my flame when introduced to my tank. He was the only fish that got the ICH (thank god) and i believe that it was due to my 6line pickin on him at first. I got a bottle of garlic xtreme and soaked the food in it to help boost all of my fish's iimmune system. I also treated the tank with NO-ICH by Marine Aquaria. I used this "snake oil" because it was recommended by my LFS who also use it in their tanks upon arrival of new shipments. It worked well and everyone is doing great. No loss of corals or any inverts. The medicine has a lifespan of 48 hrs so I was able to do water changes after the initial daily doses were cut back to every other day (IAW instruction) Try it out it is a little pricey but works. Good luck and i hope the fish pulls through.

[YellowNemo]

Hey guys thanks for the words of reprimand on the amount of fish, I was told to have about 7 was ok? I guess not LOL. All of the fish in the tank are of the same size as the tang(biggest thing is the file fish which is so docile he acts like a mother protecting the young), My tank has a very low level of everything including nitrite levels, I had the water checked before I bough him because I was well aware about how fragile the little dudes are. I just did a patial water change and I let him aclimate for 5 hours to the water.

 

He has been in the tank for a few days and he seems to mix well with all the other fish, the damsel fish's arent being mean or nipping (and I have been watching). I also am verry aware that alot of my fish will out grow my tank verry soon. My local aquarium place has a buyback program for when they get to big, but I also have a neigbor who has a 500g Aquarium who said when they grow he will purchase them off me. I am very aware of the fragility of the fish, but I wasnt forwarned that beeing that small that he would stress and get ich!?

 

 

So now that I know the things you have told me, what shoud be my plan of action? How many fish SHOULD I have and what would be the hardier ones to keep?

 

Thanks again Nick

[slclink]

Well the way that I planned my livestock was not the number of fish but by their max growth size. I bought the book Marine Fishes by Michael W. Scott and it is a great book!!!! Tells you max size of fish, min. tank size, reef compatibility, and so on. Using this book i was able to choose my livestock and plan accordingly. I found all fish that would fit in my tank and then chose which ones I wanted. I figured that if a fish max size is 3" he should have about 5 gl of water for swimming and so on. Now this is just my opinion not bible so don't take as gospel. I also then figured how good my skimmer and whatnot is to see if I can get away with more fish than the formula i used.

1" gets 1.25-1.5 gl of water.

Hope this helps and I hope you plan better. Good backup with the neighbor and Aquarium though.

[flick]

I usually give 4 gallons per 1" of fish.... Its sfae, and works great!

 

So in your 30g, you should only have 7.5" of fish. I think your pushing it a bit*...AKA A LOT! The tang will get 12" alone! Hows he doing by the way? Hopes hes better, so he can go back to the LFS, and go to someone who has a 75gallon tank....

 

Im my future 46g if i make it salt when i move, im only going with 12" of fish. Ive settled on a small yellow tang, and 2 clowns.... Then when he tang gets big (as in around 5"-6"), ill trade him in for a new, younger 2" baby again....

 

Good luck again, hope hes ok...

Flick

[YellowNemo]

I usually give 4 gallons per 1" of fish.... Its sfae, and works great!

 

So in your 30g, you should only have 7.5" of fish. I think your pushing it a bit*...AKA A LOT! The tang will get 12" alone! Hows he doing by the way? Hopes hes better, so he can go back to the LFS, and go to someone who has a 75gallon tank....

 

Im my future 46g if i make it salt when i move, im only going with 12" of fish. Ive settled on a small yellow tang, and 2 clowns.... Then when he tang gets big (as in around 5"-6"), ill trade him in for a new, younger 2" baby again....

 

Good luck again, hope hes ok...

Flick

 

I have started a copper treatment. I removed the cardinal fish as well as the blue damsel making the tank a lil less crowded. My tang is doing quite well, spots are beggining to lessen and he is still acting normal which is good. I also have the star fish and the snails in a friends aquarium so they wont be harmed by the copper. I have one of the guys coming over from the fish store to check up on lil dude andrew(the blue tang) this week, he said I should be fine.

 

thanks for the help

 

Nick

[ezcompany]

little andrew may have to go soon

i would post here and find him a good home to go to. if you truly love him you will wish for his happiness and let him go...lol

but seriously, if he gets bigger you should consider moving or giving him away