Help with Crypto

180FishAK · Oct 4, 2022

New tank 2 months+ old. Have had no signs of ich at all. Then 2 days ago both my tangs (salfin and scopas) both start rubbing the rock and sand swimming hard into the power head and then today boom scopas is covered. Easier to see on him than the salfin. I have some soft corals and a lot invested in copepods that I have dosed since week one. Tank is a 180 with a 40 gal sump. I have already gone through the uglies. Any and all advise would be greatly appreciated. I have a QT tank but afraid to stress them out more trying to catch them. Thanks in advance!

wculver · Oct 6, 2022

Adding stress to these guys is definitely usually not great. So trying to address in place is typically best. Here are my thoughts:
- You didn't mention any water quality numbers namely salinity, Nitrate, phosphate and alkalinity. These can chip away at the health of the fish.
- Nutrition: This is super important. These fish really need different things to eat. I use, mysis, brine, norie, and some peletized food as a snack. This keeps their nutrition up and super successful. I have a powder blue tang considered an ich magnet and he does very well with this plan.
- Aside from more options in food/nutrition, you'll need to deal with what you have at hand. A non-invasive option would be to soak frozen brine or mysis in FRESH garlic. In the past I have made a garlic puree that I kept in the fridge and added some to the thawing shrimp before I fed them. I have had luck with this in the past and while it is not an immediate solution I believe it chips away at the ich and reduces the number of re-infections. This of course combined with water quality and nutrition of course.
- A stressful option is a fresh water dip but this hurts my heart to see what it does to the fish so it's not my thing. Also, in the end your tank has a fresh crop of more ich ready to start as soon as they're re-introduced. So a remedy in-tank is preferred IMO.
- There are also some ich treatments but in my early days killed all the fish I treated for ich so negative experience with that.

180FishAK · Oct 6, 2022

Tank: 200gal total volume
8.2
Dkh 8
Cal 480
NO3/PO4 unreadable with AIP liquid
Ammonia zero

180FishAK · Oct 6, 2022

wculver said:
Adding stress to these guys is definitely usually not great. So trying to address in place is typically best. Here are my thoughts:
- You didn't mention any water quality numbers namely salinity, Nitrate, phosphate and alkalinity. These can chip away at the health of the fish.
- Nutrition: This is super important. These fish really need different things to eat. I use, mysis, brine, norie, and some peletized food as a snack. This keeps their nutrition up and super successful. I have a powder blue tang considered an ich magnet and he does very well with this plan.
- Aside from more options in food/nutrition, you'll need to deal with what you have at hand. A non-invasive option would be to soak frozen brine or mysis in FRESH garlic. In the past I have made a garlic puree that I kept in the fridge and added some to the thawing shrimp before I fed them. I have had luck with this in the past and while it is not an immediate solution I believe it chips away at the ich and reduces the number of re-infections. This of course combined with water quality and nutrition of course.
- A stressful option is a fresh water dip but this hurts my heart to see what it does to the fish so it's not my thing. Also, in the end your tank has a fresh crop of more ich ready to start as soon as they're re-introduced. So a remedy in-tank is preferred IMO.
- There are also some ich treatments but in my early days killed all the fish I treated for ich so negative experience with that.

Have you had experience with diet helping?

Gtinnel · Oct 6, 2022

IMO you should put them into a qt/hospital tank and treat them while the display tank is fallow. If that isn’t the method you want to use then keeping them in the display and making sure the fish stay well fed and hoping for the best is the other option.
There are two different schools of thought on this. Some people think that proper qt can keep ich out of a display and then others believe that you can’t prevent ich from getting in the tank so keeping the fish happy is the key.
Since you only have the two fish and a qt tank, did you quarantine these two fish?