Blue Tang Itch

[Mat.P]

hi there, this is rather ironic as it was only yesterday i was advised by a member to research itch as tangs are prone to it, well guess what i get home from work and the tang has some small white spots and is rubbing on everything so looks like i gotta learn now.

i didnt have time it was only one day ago i was told to look it up, so what do i do?

seems to be the only fish effected out of 4 and i can set up a hospital tank if neccasary as i have a sponge filter in my display tank as well as live rock so i can use it in the hospital tank with some of my water.

any help apreciated

Mat

 

[Aquascaper]

Sorry to hear that Matt

I would love to help but I'm currently in hospital and on Morphine (long story) but didn't want to ignore this but also don't want to give wrong advice.

 

[Mat.P]

Sorry to hear that Matt

I would love to help but I'm currently in hospital and on Morphine (long story) but didn't want to ignore this but also don't want to give wrong advice.

sorry to hear that hope you get better soon, im sure someone else will be along and help, i have done some reading now and understand its a parsite that attaches to the host fish and then drops off into the next stage so hopefully my poor fish should get some relief in a few days and then i can get to work eradicating the thing, but i cant use copper meds because i have the nem, i think this rules out hyposalinity too

 

[Aquascaper]

Yeah no copper med, research freshwater baths though

 

[Donya]

I can't offer much detailed help with this either. I have never actually had to treat ich and never had experience with tangs, which I know are sensitive to certain treatment types.

However, what I can say first is don't be suckered in by any products that claim to be reef-safe or invert-safe cures for this disease. They don't work and the active ingredients tend to be a joke. Anything that does work reliably will nuke your inverts, and not just the anemone - most or all of your inverts will be at risk from just about any common and effective med. So, there is really nothing useful you can put in the tank itself to help deal with the parasites. The ideal case would be to remove the fish, treat in QT, and let the tank lie fish-less for several weeks to eliminate the parasite through starvation. If you remove just the tang and treat it, you are likely to see it show up spotty again as soon as it goes back in the display.

Don't put live rock in the hospital tank - you'll juts make it dead if you add any treatments to the water and then add a bunch of decay. Go with a sponge and lots of water changes.

You can also investigate UV sterilizers if you want as a longer-term helper in this if you can't leave the tank fish-less (although they are not a cure, just a possible way of reducing the volume of free-swimming parasites to give the fish a better chance of fighting it off). Unfortunately though, I would guess that most nano sterilizers are insufficient due to not enough intensity and not enough flow to really be effective and they are pretty expensive things.

 

[Mat.P]

thanks for the reply, i dont think removing the fish for several weeks would be something i could do as my hospital tanks is bearly bigenough for 1 and has rubbish light (15w piggmy bulb) i will keep looking, its still only the tang thats effected, maybe he was stressed my something but water quality is normal and good, so i guess i could see if he is effected again after the parasites drop, as i understand if they dont find a host they die so if the tank can fight them next time he could be ok, i have added nothing new to the tank either so this must have been present since the last thing i bought which was a coral aboutt 3 weeks ago.

Mat

 

[Donya]

as i understand if they dont find a host they die

This is true, but fish are at an immediate disadvantage when the parasites go into the free-swimming stage because of the sheer number they get exposed to in a closed system (concentration is a big reason why it's such an epidemic in tanks but not in the ocean). So, either the fish need to be VERY healthy with a good slime coat to fend off a large attack or there needs to be something else actively knocking back the free-swimming numbers - or the parasites have to be starved. It takes several weeks to ensure that the parasites have gone through the free-swiming stage and starved.

maybe he was stressed my something but water quality is normal and good

Small spaces are a big stress factor for tangs. If this is the same 90L mentioned in your other thread, that could easily be a big factor in the disease outbreak. This is part of why I said that even if you treat the fish successfully now in isolation, it's likely to be spotty again some time after reintroduction to the main tank. It's not impossible for the fish to fight it off, but it requires that the fish is not stressed. It's not uncommon for people to have the same issue with the same fish (the ones that are not thriving for whatever reason) come back again and again every few weeks interspersed with times looking ok as the parasites bloom and then go dormant again.

so this must have been present since the last thing i bought which was a coral aboutt 3 weeks ago.

Unless you dumped a lot of bag water in with the coral, it's probably been in the tank since the tang was added (or even since the first fish was added) and the life cycle has just ticked over in a noticeable way.

 

[Mat.P]

im so ashamed and kicking myself, i think i know what caused the tang to be stressed.

i just came to do a water change and a good sift of the sand to help get rid of any free swimming parasites, knowing i was going to desturb the tank alot i moved all my inverts into a lunchbox full of my water (apart from the nem and fish) and did the change, when i checked my new saltwater mixed by lfs with my refractometer and it said it was nearly 40ppt so i added ro to bring it down then when i checked it said 45ppt i was like #136###, anyway i went and checked the refractometer with the ro it was reading 10ppt! so i recallibrated and checked the origional water the inverts are in it was 25ppt! omg the refractometer had malfunctioned meaning i had been overcompensating for what i thought was the lfs over mixing salt when in reality it was already correct, so to make sure i checked again and it flippin change again then i realised any movement on the refractometer caused it to read wrong, so carefully whilst checking the callibration every time before the water i have stabilized the tank over the course of the day slowly and everthing seems to be alive, i also did the same to the inverts by putting them back in the origional water from which they came then adjusting it all together.

what a day! anyway the refractometer is going in the bin and i will buy a new decent on tomorrow.

MAT

 

[Donya]

Hyposalinity is often used as a treatment for ich in fish-only systems where the salinity can be dropped safely for an extended period of time. Many stores will put incomming fish that they are uncertain of into tanks with very low specific gravities because of this, since it helps stop disease transmission and can cure mild cases on fish that come in with something. Fish can survive quite well in low salinities that cause problems for invertebrates long-term and it often helps to relieve stress on already sick fish, so that seems very unlikely as a cause of the tang beings stressed. That the disease persisted or even broke out during such conditions suggests that either that fish is really weak or it's not actually ich. Have you ruled out marine velvet? Some cases can look a bit similar to bad cases of ich and most sources I've read seem to agree that it is not as adversely affected by hyposalinity as ich is.

 

[Mat.P]

Ok so it seems this wasnt as severe for the fish as i thought (i thought salinity that low would have killed) ok i will check marine velvet and see what that is, as forementioned its only the tang effected and it did have 6 white spots very small on its black line and some on its blue part but these appeared more like a tiny lump than a spot.

most of them have gone now i can only see one spot left and one little pimple both on the same side and it seems to have stopped scratching on things, i will keep an eye out for its return.