question on Ick

having one fish show up with ich does not necessarily mean there's going to be an outbreak on every other fish in the tank, its the fish that feels most stressed from reasons that another fish may not be stressed about. good example being, maybe the tang is being harrassed by another fish and that's the only fish getting harrassed in tank, therefore its immune system is weaker than the firefish. another good example, i had a blue tang and a yellow tang, and the yellow tang was not taking any seaweed while the blue tang was, and the yellow tang eventually did not make it because it was missing a important part of its diet which weaken its immune system, and many other reasons that's too many to name

 

there is only two fish in the system. now I freal like I should put him back into the display tank and not the fuge. I don't know what to do just want him to live.

 

put him back into the display and just do what i told you to do to above.

 

IMO, tangs (esp. yellow) and related fish are particularly susceptible to Ich. And trying to catch a fish in a reef tank will be very stressful to it and you. I agree with m_hsiao about diet. Its one of the most important parts of the puzzle. You can dose your food with Selcon, which provides B & C vitamins along with Omega 3's. I also suggest garlic, although I had a friend whose Xenia hated the garlic supplement when it went into the tank, so be careful. They were alright with fresh garlic oil though. Just crush a piece of garlic and soak it in tank or RO water. Then pour off the oil on the surface into the food and soak.

Regarding hospital tanks, they are probably better used as QT tanks for 6-8 wks before putting a new fish in your reef. This allows you to treat w/ hyposalinity for several weeks and then slowly bring the salt levels back up without harming your inverts. I have also read some debate about whether temp needs to be raised or not--it could stress out your fish more than it's worth. QT is a pain and no fun, but if it prevents you ever introducing Ich into your system it is worth it.

 

what about using garlic powder. Should I just mix it with regular feeding or dose the tank with it. plus wll it hurt my other inverts. I put tang back in tank and he is just covered in it. I will be very happy if I can pull him through this.

 

I would suggest that you try introducing a very dilute quantity of the garlic powder to the system to ensure that you don't PO any of your corals. If everything is ok that day then you should be able to start dosing your fish food with it. 1-2 weekly is usually a good place to start but you may want to feed it to the tang everyday. Garlic performs one, maybe two key functions: a) it boosts the fishes immune response, b) it may discourage the Ich larvae from attaching to the fish. I also highly suggest getting some Selcon. I buy it at my LFS and can get a small bottle for about $8. Soaking food in it will seriously boost the nutritional value.

Ich treatments, other than nutritional, all have drawbacks. The main problem is that you can't do any of them in your reef tank. Copper=invert death plus is toxic to fish as well and can accumulate in their livers. Hyposalinity=biofilter and invert death. Sometimes you just have to pick a method and hope for the best.

Here is a good article with references you may want to check out:

ATJ's Marine Aquarium Site - Reference - Marine "Ich"

 

looked at that site and found some good info. Thanks for letting me in on that. Tang seems to be doing ok still and when I pulled him out of the fuge he was covered in ick now seems to be not as much. But he is still eating and all. I put a couple of shakes of garlic powder in his food and tomarrow I will ad more. I have also always changed the food up never the same thing 2days in a row. Thanks again and will post with more results on this.

 

Tang eating so much he is getting a fat belly like it is going to explode. Don't know if this is normal for a tang or am I feeding him too much. He still has his ick too. Maybe the 2 are related.