Dying Tang Problem

T

texomareeffreak

I have recently experienced a severe problem with fish dying. I have a 90 gal with fish and corals. Salinity 1.023, Temp 78-80, water quaility tests good. My corals are thriving, while my Tangs are dying. I had a Sailfin for about 6 months with no problems, I added a Scopis and he did fine for about 1-2 months, until I added a Yellow Eye Kole. He quickly developed Ich, and died within a week. I started treatment with Ich Attack, and followed the directions. Treated for a week, did a 25% water change. Then huge mistake! Left for the Virgin Islands and left my tank in the capable hands of my friend who owns the lfs where I buy all my livestock. The day I left it was 65 degrees outside and we had turned off the heat and air in our house, and forgot to turn it back on before we left. the 3rd night we were gone the temp dropped into the 20's and the temp inside the house dropped enough that the water temp dropped enough to stess my fish to the point that I lost a Bi-color Blennie, my Sailfin, a SS Goby, and my Scopis. My Cinnamon Clown, and all 3 Firefish survived. Since then I have changed 25% of my water twice, water quaility tests good. I tried a Scopis again last Thursday, on Friday it had one small white spot on its side then Saturday was covered with ich and dead by noon. I've consulted with several people who have been in the hobby for many years and no ideas. I have ordered a UV Sterilizer, and am installing a sump this week to add to the 2 Rena Filstar's I currently run. I have good water movement, and all other fish besides the Tangs are doing good. Any ideas as to what may be the problem? I don't want to add another Tang until I find out for sure I have solved my problem, but I don't know how I will know when that is.
 
Remove any fish to another tank that you can hypo for 6 weeks while you leave the main tank fallow of fish to starve the ich.

There is no reef-safe proven effective cure for ich.
 
Ok...You have your answer for getting rid of ick in your tank. What exactly are your parameters and tank specs i.e equipment, good opportunity to have a large group of hobbiest look over your parameters etc and give some input...it could help catch something that could cause issues down the road. I hope you are cleaning those canister filter's weekly :wink:

Cheers!
 
Temp 78-80, Salinity 1.023, Amonia 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 10, PH 8, 90 gal tank, 2 Rena Filstar XP2's, cleaned bi-weekly, Sea Clone 150 Skimmer, 2 powerheads, Tank has been up for almost 1 year. I am in the process of adding a sump, and a UV sterilizer.

Are Firefish and Sand Sifting Gobies more resistant to Ich? I figured the Firefish would have been the first to go.
 
@texomareeffreak wrote:
Temp 78-80 said:
Good to see you plan to add the extra volume via the sump. I am curious why after a year you decided to add an UV unit, hopefully it's not for the ick. Your tank would a lot better off if you put the money that the UV will cost, towards a better skimmer and additional flow. I also meant parameters such as Ca,Alk,Mg and phosphate.
**edit** PH is also slightly low
Cheers!
Click to expand...
 
seaclone is not the best skimmer but at least it skims if you find a good deal on a better skimmer I would upgrade...I have run a sea clone on one of my tanks. But I am in the opinion of dont over skim as you are taking nutrients out and we are supplementing them back in.

You definetly need to try to get the tangs out as soon as possible and get them in quarintine tank...My tangs used to get ich once every couple months till I started weekly 10% water changes and started to run ozone have not had ich since...knock on wood.
 
Guys, lets stick to the issue at hand here. More flow and better skimmer are certainly good advice but have nothing to do with his fish dying or the Ich problem!

Ashlar is correct and the UV filter might help some but will not solve your problem. Same with Ozone. Water changes will help virtually nil (not that you shouldn't do them as good husbandry anyway) as the parasite is 90% on the fish or the substrate and not in the water column.

As stated the only course of action here if you want to cure it is to run a fallow tank for 6-8 weeks and take all your fish out and treat them. If you are not willing to this then you'll have to live with Ich literally forever which many many people do but don't be suprised if you lose fish!
 
The temp swing could have set of the ich and some fish are more suseptable than other. Have you tried adding garlic to their food?

I just seems to me I see more tangs with ich than other types of fish.
 
Totally agree. You will enjoy your tank much more if there's no ich. You'll need a good sized qt for tangs. I've heard of people putting any new tang or susceptible fish such as butterflys into hypo as soon as they're acquired and not waiting for the inevitable ich to show up. That's what I do. I have only one tang, a blue tang, and since hypo he's been ich free for two years.

Kay
 
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