New Blue Hippo has Ich

[kingkapoor]

I got a blue Hippo off a friend who had him/her for 3 years. About day 4 he has Ich. It looks pretty mild right now but I want to nip this issue in the butt ASAP.

Whats the best way to handle this? Ive had most of my other fish for several months now (clowns, damsels etc)

 

[rkpetersen]

Photo's a bit blurry but I agree that looks like ich/crypto.
Now that the parasite is in your tank, you have two choices.
You can go for a cure to eliminate it entirely, which is a fair amount of work, as outlined here.
Of the methods outlined in that thread, chloroquine phosphate should be avoided in this case, as hippo tangs are sensitive to it.

Or you can try 'ich management', meaning using various techniques to minimize the disease's impact while keeping your fingers crossed.
Such things might include UV sterilization, ozone, micron filtration, improving water quality and flow, adding potential predators like cleaner shrimp and gobies.
Management can sometimes result in a long-term cure, but it could also fail with recurrent episodes of disease and fish death.

 

[kingkapoor]

Photo's a bit blurry but I agree that looks like ich/crypto.
Now that the parasite is in your tank, you have two choices.
You can go for a cure to eliminate it entirely, which is a fair amount of work, as outlined here.
Of the methods outlined in that thread, chloroquine phosphate should be avoided in this case, as hippo tangs are sensitive to it.

Or you can try 'ich management', meaning using various techniques to minimize the disease's impact while keeping your fingers crossed.
Such things might include UV sterilization, ozone, micron filtration, improving water quality and flow, adding potential predators like cleaner shrimp and gobies.
Management can sometimes result in a long-term cure, but it could also fail with recurrent episodes of disease and fish death.

If I want to seriously eradicate Ich, I only have a rock + fish tank + a few shrimps, could I just remove the shrimps put them in a separate tank and treat the entire tank with copper?

 

[Swoody]

If I want to seriously eradicate Ich, I only have a rock + fish tank + a few shrimps, could I just remove the shrimps put them in a separate tank and treat the entire tank with copper?

You can.... remove the rock as well since it will absorb and can make keeping your copper level tricky.... plus you can clean it up let it bake in the sun etc.... and it will be ready to go back in after treatment is finished.