Frustrated

Question
QUESTION: I moved my fish from a 55 to 75 gallon tank last weekend. I actually dreaded the move since I knew it would be stressful and that tangs are prone to ICH and I was afraid the stress of the move would cause another outbreak and we just got through one. Well it is starting to look like it did. It does not seem to be bad yet, but the Sailfin and the Hippo both have some small white spots and are rubbing some on rocks and keep going to my one remaining cleaner goby to get cleaned. I have started treating them with garlic since there are other fish in the tank. Should I start the Kick-Ich treatments again or continue with the garlic by itself for a few days. Some fish people have told me that they do not treat their tangs, they just let the ich run its course, but they are not the only fish in the tank. Today I noticed something odd on my 2 Chromis.  One has 3 spots on it that are red and almost look as if something has been pecking at it. The scales are missing on these spots. The larger Chromis only has one of the spots and it is small compared to the largest on the smaller Chromis. I did not know whether to be concerned or if it is exactly what I think that maybe one of my other fish has been bullying and picking at them. I also have a maroon clown, lawnmower blenny(which was attacking my cow fish before I removed him, I thought because the cowfish had ich like the rest of the tank and looked as if it needed to shed), orange banded shrimp goby, engineer goby, scooter bleeny, sea urchins, snails, small hermit crabs, and the large striped one I emailed you about yesterday. The two chromis are acting and swimming normal. Do you have any ideas?

ANSWER: HI Debbie. I am sorry to hear about the troubles you are going through. Any fish person that told you not to treat your tangs for ich and let it run its course must not know allot about the life cycle of this parasite. That would be like letting a case of fleas run its course on your dog. Wouldn't make much sense. Ich is a parasite. Fish tend to be more susceptible to outbreaks of ich when stressed because the parasite can take advantage of a lowered immune system.( when fish have a lowered immune system their slime coat may not protect their bodies as it would with a fully healthy non-stressed out fish making it easier for the ich to attach to the exposed skin) Using anything but a copperbased medication will only control the out break but not eradicate it from your tank. Future outbreaks are going to occur any time there is a stress factor for your fish. Those people who let it run its course will always have a latent infection looming in the corners waiting to seize an opportunity to become a full blown outbreak the minute a fishes' immune system is compromised. Do you have a hospital tank to put your fish into? Since you do have invertebrates in your tank you can not treat for ich in there since copper medications will potentially kill your inverts. The only way to permanently get rid of ich is to remove all the fish from the main tank and put into a hospital tank to be treated with a copperbased medication. The main tank must be left free of any fish in which the ich parasite can use as a host for a total of thirty days. Without a fish host the ich can not live and reproduce. Sounds like allot of work but I have used kick ich in the past and I know from experience it does not permanently get rid of this parasite in your aquarium. Even if your fish look great, there is still enough of the parasites reproducing that the population will keep going. This is why ich has come up again for you. It was still in your tank and with the stress of moving it found an opportunity to reproduce more rapidly by feeding on the stressed fish with the compromised immune system. The chromis most likely have some sort of bacterial infection. You may not have seen ich all over them but it only takes one of these parasites to bite and attach onto the fish leaving an open wound and a pathway for bacteria to enter the fish. Antibiotics in conjunction with a therapeutic dose of a copper based medication will ensure that not only the parasite is gone for good but any of the open wounds left by the parasites on your fish do not become infected. I am sorry to have to be the one to tell you all this and if your looking for me to suggest to you a quick fix I can't. Only because there really is no quick fix for curing ich in a saltwater tank that houses invertebrates.

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QUESTION: My hospital tank is only a 10 gallon. The Hippo tang is probably about 5 inches and the Sailfin about 2 and 1/2 inches, the chromis are a little over an inch. How will they do in a 10 gallon tank? What medications do you recommend for the Ich and the bacterical infection? Thanks.

ANSWER: You may need a bigger hospital tank. While treating only the fish that are infected seems like a good approach, the remaining fish in your tank will be enough to keep the ich parasite from totally dying off in your tank. With this you run the possibility of your tangs becoming stressed out after treatment when you return them back to your tank and breaking out in a new infestation of the parasite. Even though the other fish in your tank appear to be ich free that doesn't mean that one or two parasites aren't feeding off of them and reproducing. Ich needs a fish host to live out its life cycle. After feeding on a fish for a day or two the parasite drops off and lays its eggs in the same spot where the fish beds down for the night. This will ensure that there will be a fish host when the eggs hatch the next night hungry and in search of a host. You may not notice one parasite on one of your healthy fish but unless you move all your fish to the hospital tank to be treated there will always be a latent infection waiting for an opportunity to infect a stressed out fish. If something changes with your water quality for instance the ammonia goes up from accidentally over feeding, the fish will become stressed out and the ich parasite will rear its ugly head once again. It is best to remove all fish infected or not. With that said if you wish to take your chances and treat only the fish showing evident signs of infection then this tank will still be a little on the small side. It can be done but the stress of that many fish and of the size that the hippo tang is may cause too much stress that other infections may start to show up. These fish already have a compromised immune system and the ich is most likely causing them to be a little anemic. Adding any more stress by putting them together in that small of a tank could cause more problems then they already have. With that said the medications I would recommend would be coppersafe(you will need a copper test kit to make sure you are maintaining a therapeutic level of copper) and a broad spectrum antibiotic like kanamycin,gentamycin or terramycin. The antibiotic can be given orally by preparing a mixture of one 250 mg tablet with 1 oz. of food. Mix well and feed your fish this two times a day for two weeks. Never stop an antibiotic treatment early even if all signs of infection are gone.

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QUESTION: Now I am back to frustrated.  I have never had this type of problems with freshwater. I am really at a lost as to what to do now. I do not have space for a larger hospital tank. We have a fish store here call Fintastics, they were the ones that recommended the Kick-Ich and garlic since I had so many fish that were exposed and I cannot used copper because of the intvertbrates and because I wanted to introduce corals to my tank. Thanks for all the info, I am thinking of getting out of saltwater fish. I guess I did not realize they were going to be so hard.

Answer
Please do not get frustrated. This is just a minor bump in the road. All saltwater fish hobbyists go through some sort of trial period especially in the beginning. Please don't lose hope. You can take all the inverts that you have out of your tank and place them in the hospital tank. Treat your main tank with a copperbased medication for two weeks. Do several 25% partial water changes over the two weeks after treatment is done for a total of four weeks, and place fresh activated carbon in your system to remove all of the copper out of the tank. Put any of the live rock that you may have in your main tank into the quarantine tank with the invertebrates or  put in a bucket of salt water with an airstone for the two weeks of treatment. After your done treating the main tank with a copper based medication and after you have done a few partial water changes and after your water has been filtered through carbon several times add your rock and inverts. back to your main tank. Most copper medications will eventually come out of the system. I hear allot of reports from people who are having trouble with their corals blame it on using copper in their system years ago. Most likely they are having problems with their corals because they don't know what they are doing. You may have to wait for about six months before you can start to add your corals and start with a few of the hardier species but I don't think if you do it this way that you will totally wreck your chances of having coral in your tank. It will just have to be put off for a few months. I have a 55 gallon tank at my work that we used to use as a quarantine tank for new tangs and other fish considered to be ich magnets. This tank was dosed with coppersafe many times over the years. When our coral tank sprung a leak we had no choice but to relocate everything into this tank as it was the only empty tank at that time. It has now been one of our coral tanks for well over a year and we rarely ever lose any corals. As a matter of fact we have some stray polyps and stuff attached to the shelves we built and more coralline algae growth then any other tank. The moral is that I find it very hard to believe, due to first hand experience, that copper will continue to leach out into a tank for the rest of the life of the tank making it impossible to house corals ever. That seems like the words of a very negative disgruntled person who needs something other then them self to blame their lack of success in keeping corals. I have used copper in a tank containing hermit crabs to cure a coral beauty of ich and the copper had no ill effect on the hermit crab. It lived right through the treatment and for a long time afterwards. What I am trying to say is that there is allot of information out there pertaining to saltwater fish and invert. keeping. The majority of it is information passed down the line from person to person until the story goes from "I lost all my corals because I used copper in my tank" to " if you ever use copper in your tank you will always lose all your corals". Do you see what I am saying? I don't want you to quit! I have 16 years of this first hand. I have used copper to treat more fish then most people could even fathom. I work in a pet store where most of the cases of ich are! These fish are sooo stressed out from being collected, starved and then shipped that one that doesn't come down with something is amazing! You will get this under control and you will have corals in your tank I promise you that. That is if you don't give up!