Blue Tang Has Infection..? Big White Lumps

updated: blue tang ich - SETTING UP HOSPITAL TANK?

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Hi, i've done abit of research, and i've decided to go ahead with copper treatment for my blue tang who showed ich today.

symptoms of my blue tang: white grains which have dissapeared to become white patches, very fast breathing, pale, rubs itself on live rock

first of all, i have my old tank which i can use as a hospital tank, and i also have a filter which i used to run it (before my current tank)

i have some questions regarding to the setup:

1) what water do i put in there? obviously salt water, but water from the display tank, or should i mix up a whole new tank of salt water, or buy salt water and fill the tank up?

2) i have 2 fish only, the blue tang with ich, and a clown. should i also move my clown over to the hospital tank? or is this a bad idea?

3) if i move both the fish, and i leave my fish in there for 2 weeks - 1 month etc, will i still need to do frequent water changes in my displa tank even if there's no fish there?

4) after i treat my tang and if it appears to be better, is it likely it will get ich again when i put him back to the display tank? (i've read that they become immune but what if i put him back in the display tank too quickly before it fights off the parasite?)

thanks in advance for everyone who replies

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yesterday my blue tang was fine
happy as normal, swimming around

then today when i went to feed them, he didnt come out to eat
he was hiding under a rock, i looked under and saw he looked very pale, i removed the rock, he came out

he has white LUMPS on his skin .. its not just white DOTS .. they are actual lumpy

i dont know what happened ... i don't have time to go to the fish shop for advice .. i have an exam in a few hours
i will go after my exam..until then if any one reads this can u please help and advise me on what it might be, and what i should do

i will try and take a photo later today ....

i only have 2 fish, a blue tang and clown .... is this going to affect then clown too? ...

even his yellow tail is lumpy .. he is all lumpy ...
thanks...

 

Sounds like ich. Do water tests to make sure your water parameters, temp, etc are ok. It's an internal parasite, brought on by stress. Get your water parameters good, and make sure he's eating algae, seaweed with garlic additive (kent garlic xtreme, etc.)
Search the fish diseases threads. There's lots to read about it all there. Read that, then asks questions if you still need help. Good luck.

 

ive always done a freshwater dip on fish with ich but with tangs it might just stress it out more, if you go with the fw dip do 15 minutes in water the same temp as your tank, good luck!

 

thanks again for those who replied (i deleted my previous reply coz i found the answers to my own questions)

i have just checked water parameters btw and they appear fine, nitrate might be abit high, will do water change tomorrow

as for the fresh water dip, about a year ago the pH in my tank dropped to dangerous levels and my blue tang wasn't coping well with it at all (breathing very fast, and just sunk to the bottom of the tank). before i tested the water (before i knew it was a pH problem) the guy at the fish shop suggested it might be like a parasite or something since only the tang was affected (nemo was normal through the low ph.. very good fish, never have had problems) and said to try fresh water dip. i did do it for 2 minutes and i seriously thought the fish was gonna die because after that it just breathed even faster and appeared to be worse. then i added ph buffer and the fish got better haha anyway, i might actually try a fresh water dip again now, and if it doesnt appear better by tomorrow morning i will go ahead with the copper treatment

 

i just put him in fresh water, for 5 minutes
i'm too scared to put him in there for that long, coz last time i only put him in there for 2 minutes and the went psycho. anyway how long do other people recommend? if 15 minute is popular then i might try for a full 15

hopefully he shows improvement tomorrow

 

I wouldn't do any longer than 5 minutes either on a FW dip. I'm assuming you know to only treat with copper in a Fish Only tank (no inverts, coral, etc..) otherwise be sure to set up a quarantine tank or hospital tank for copper treatment. If he's eating, I wouldn't bother up till the point where the ich is obviously going to kill the fish. Usually they recover on their own if they are eating a healthy diet and water parameters are good.

 

with Freshwater dips you really need to just watch the fish, if it looks bad take it out you want to leave them in there as long as you can though, to obviously kill as many of the parasites as you can.

 

Ohh, i see
i was thinking of immediately putting him into a hospital tank tomorrow if he isn't better. but i feel more relieved now knowing that it should usually go away itself
i will do a water change tomorrow, hopefully to bring nitrate down a little so it stresses him less

he is still eating a little bit, but he is just not as active
hopefully tomorrow morning he will be better

also i've seen on other threads that cleaner shrimps may help cure/prevent ich? the ones i see at the fish shop look very big, MUCH bigger than the fish, and looks deadly if i was to put it with my fish as they are so small compared to it, ...they won't hurt the fish will they? my tank is small, 50 litres, is it a good idea to get one?

thank u so much for your help

 

Increase amount and frequency of water changes...keep water params stable.

Invest in a cleaner shrimp and maybe a neon goby...

Sounds like fish highly stressed. Tank size

 

Oh alrite
i just wanna ask, how do you know if it looks bad? because when i watched it, he mostly just layed flat on the bottom, then sometimes swam around, then layed back down. i admit i poked him a few times to make sure he was still alive when he just lyed there

will it be a good idea to give them a fresh water bath every day until he gets better? or is that going to be really bad? thanks!