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Hi - It looks like my Powder blue tang has developed a case of saltwater ich.

I have read a few articles on this and some say that it is better to leave the fish as if it is healthy it will beat the infection on it's own.

Other suggest that if not treated it will kill the fish.

Does anyone have any suggestions? I have a reef setup with coral/anenome/shrimp so am limited in treatment options. Is there a non copper based medication I can use?

Also on an unrelated topic my clown has developed pop eye. Is there also another treatment I can use for this?

Thanks

Si

Oh sorry - forgot to mention I do have a UV steriler on the tank so it should contain the infection!

Meds are a matter of opinion, I personally feel all reef safe meds are useless. If possible, remove the fish to a Qtank. If not, reduce the amount of light per day. You can also up the temp a little, this will speed up the life cycle of the ick. Do your best to reduce all stress on teh fish. As long as it looks strong and some what healthy, leave it be. FW dips can remove some cysts. but also add to the stress of the fish. In many cases, when left along, the fish will fight off the infection on there own.



Dan

Gatoruk,
I was just checking some sources about "Popeye" and i'll just type in a pagagraph I found:

Popeye is a symptom, not an actual disease. Swelling behind or in the eye may be brought on by many factors but is most commonly caused by bacteria or rarely, by parasites. If unilateral, the cause may be mechanical injury, such as the fish bumping into something or getting thwacked by a net. Popeye is difficult to treat, but the most effective procedure seems to be the passing of time in a good environment, and receiving medicated food. Prepared mixes are available or you may make your own. Popeye may signal the need for a massive water change and better attention to water quality.
-Robert Fenner, "the conscientious marine aquarist"

After reading that last sentence and knowing you have a fish with popeye and another with ich leads me to believe the two might NOT be unrelated.

Best of luck.

Thanks guys so really great advice.

I am not sure about my water quality - I am pretty sure everything is OK. Nitrites/Nitrates are so low they don't even register. Salinity is right. Temperature is right. Light is right. Phosphates are low. Everything I can test is fine however I have had a spate of recent deaths so I am really not sure.

I don't have a quarentine tank at the moment (No space) and as such I think the ich must have been caused by a new arrival (This teaches me the importance of a quarantine tank). The Clown hosts an anenome and it has moved between rocks so it is entirely possible the clown has bumped into the rock whilst rolling around in the anenome.

But like I said the coincidence is so great I am just not sure.

I will try lowering the lights and raising the temperature - I think the tang is still fighting (In fact she is the first to feed and eating voraciously) so I am confident she can beat it. How could I medicate the food? Also what is the medication used to treat Pop eye?

Thanks again

Check your hardness. Low or high KH can cause alot of problems.

I have heard that garlic will help with fighting infections. You can soak your food in it with other nutrients. That might help some. I know it works well as a preventative but I don't know about an actual treatment. Regardless, from the information I have read I believe that it won't hurt anything to try.

Raider_fish

I personally prefer not to use any meds in the main tank. Make sure the fish eat properly, if they get plenty of food, preferably a variety (as long as they eat it) of different things then a reasonably healthy fish should be able to fight it. However, you probably won't get rid of it in the tank if it is ich unless it's treated. I know there is still ich in one of my tanks, there's not a whole lot I can really do with that one, but it's under control, all the fish are healthy, eating very well a variety of about 5 different frozen foods, and the water paramaters are as near perfect as I can get them (0 amonia, nitirites, around 2ppm nitrates (*hugs his aquamedic nitrate reductor*), fw top offs each day to keep salinity stable, and weekly minor water changes). Ozone and UV can help a bit, ozone certainly helps to clean/clear up the water and raise redox, which has to help the fish's health.
All that said, don't overfeed and end up polluting the water, as that will just make things worse. Keep up maintenance on your skimmer and filters etc.
Of course, Cleaner Shrimp and to a lesser extent Cleaner Wrasse can help a lot to keep ich controlled on larger fish (tangs etc). But the shrimp will be sensitive to many ich treatments that work better though
Oh, and I would advise strongly against fw dips for fish that look stressed/ill, chasing them around with the net and the massive shock of the fw dip can be enough to finish them off , However, I have had (a) miracolous recovery by dipping a cleaner wrasse that was just 1-2 minutes from dieing from ich with Kent Marine RXP in a bucket of salt water in the more concentrated dip quantities for about 10-15 minutes. At the end of the dip he went from laying on his side bearly breathing to swimming around the bucket, the next day he was nearly completely back to normal, wizzing around the tank and "surfing" the waves at the top of the tanks as they do. Cleaner shrimp really do do a good job when the fish let them (mainly tang sized fish).

Last edited by worley at 02-Oct-2004 04:03

Just an FYI....The only ONLY way you can be sure you rid your FOWLR or Reef tank of Ich is to go fishless for 6 weeks.This period is long enough to let any cysts go through thier life cycle and you haven't wiped out your live rock and inverts with meds!