I like when the gasp, like it's such hard work...

Sick Tuskfish
 

:cry: Sydney the Tuskfish has taken a turn for the worst. This morning he is covered in Ich and has one cloudy eye. After work I will remove him and treat with hypo salinity and Cupramine. I really hope he makes it. (crosses fingers) He has quickly become my favourite fish.

Need a hand with anything, give me a call.

How is Sydney tonight? Did you get him into a hospital tank?

Not yet; still trying to catch him. He's not responding to food and just hiding way down in the rocks, which makes it really hard to catch him. Still working on it though, thanks.

Whooot! Whoooot!
 

:woot: All is well in my little world again!
The Tuskfish is recovering nicely. He was in such bad shape and I couldn't catch him for treatment. He lodged himself way down in the rocks and I couldn't get at him. I was ready to drain the tank to get him, but yesterday he was looking a little better and even ate a little, so I thought I'd give it one more day. Today his eyes are clear again and he ate a whole clam! He's even out and about now. And as a bonus, my L.M. Blenny decided to try frozen food and found it to his liking. I was a little worried that he may be running out of food as the Hair Algae is nearly gone now. So, all-in-all it was a pretty good day! :whoo:

Good to hear you TF is on the mend:thumb:

Tuskfish is a Wuss!
 

So, apparently my big, tough, predator is a wussy! The Foxface has him totally bullied and will not let him out of his cave, where he hides all day long. Won't even come out to eat. I have to feed him with a feeding stick. (PITA)
They are about the same size, Foxface only a little larger. Funny how this just came about now. The Tusk has been in the tank for 20 days now. I wish he'd realize he could beat the snot out of the Foxface if he tried. I'm hoping when the SF Tang and Chocolate Tang go in the tank it alleviates the problem.

My tusk is the same. He gets bullied by my Hippo Tang all the time. It kind of drives me nuts because the tusk could beat the crap out of the hippo if he realyl wanted--guess he just doesn't realize it.

I have noticed a few scales have kind of lifted up in one side of my tusks body. I am not sure if its from a fight or rubbing against something but it worries me...looks kind of bad. He doesn't seem to care though.

Hopefully it's just a scrape and not serious.
Have you ever noticed that the cheap fish or fish without personality never develop a problem. I only ever seem to have a problem with my favourites. Stupid little cheap Chromis just keep on pluggin' away, healthy as hell.

Yeah I hope so. It worries me because their scales are quite large and the two scales I am talking about look like they were kind of peeled back or up off the tusk a bit. Looks kind of serious to me but hopefully its not.

Im glad yours is doing better!

Foxface or Two Face?
 

My nice mellow Foxface is a Dr. Jekyll/Mr Hyde. He lived in my 90 gal for over a year and was a model citizen (except for the occasional nip at the corals and feather dusters). Now he's in the 225 gal and turned into a real SOB. He won't let the Tuskfish and Chocolate Tang out of their cave. When I feed the Tusker with a feeding stick he attacks him and steals his food. At feeding time he spends more time chasing other fish than he does eating.
Anybody else have a similar problem with this fish? If I banish him to the QT for awhile will he settle down? Suggestions?

Too bad I don't still have Bob, he sure plumbed up my foxface.

LOL Yeah, he sure did. I gotta say: That's the sorriest looking Foxface I've ever seen. :wink:

You need an angel like my regal, I have seen her grab my foxface by the spines and shake him :mrgreen:

hahahahahahahahaaha.... ohh the mental image of that is hilarious!

That's Hilarious!
I'm just about to the point of grabbing him by his long nose and giving him a shake myself.

You know, I am finding that Tusks are quite easy to push around despite the appearance. Mine gets chased by a few of my tangs (especially the Hippo) but never chases back. He did kill a damsel and does seem to chase the little guys around but not anyone around the same size as him.

When it comes to feeding though, different story. He then becomes king of the tank. Takes food from any other fish he feels like, even the Hippo tang. He is a greediest fish I have ever owned...and I have owned a lot of greedy puffers!

I'm finding the same thing: quite timid. Some of the websites say they are semi-aggressive and a few say quite peaceful. Mine is peaceful to the point of being pushed off his food even. The first few days I had him he was in control of the tank and the food. Huh? How's yours doing today by the way?

He acts fine and seems happy enough but still has the raised scales. He also seems to have lost some color the past little while although I think it may have to do with the bluer light. But I would also say that the change in diet (from whatever he was eating in Australia to now) is also part of the reason. I do soak all food in lots of vitamins and usually get fish to actually color up but with this guy, he came in so ridiculously bright, that I have a feeling it will be hard to keep him there. I notice much of the red on the tip of his tail has faded. May also be connected to whatever is wrong with his side (scales).

All in all, I guess he is ok but I am still very worried about him. He really has become my favorite fish.

I hear what you're saying! In a short time mine has also become my favourite, and until he gets his nerve back and comes out of hiding more often I won't rest easily. I caught the troublesome Foxface and removed him from the tank, so hopefully everybody settles down.

So, the Foxface has been removed and banished to QT for awhile. And everybody is happy. The Tuskfish and Chocolate Tang are now swimming freely about the tank and everyone is eating normally. I find it strange that the Foxface was such a good fish when he was in the 90 gal and such a little bastard in the 225 gal. Weird!

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...k/IMG_3211.jpg

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...k/IMG_3286.jpg

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How is the ich issue? fish are looking good.

The two new tangs to the tank have it pretty good right now, but that's to be expected.

I have noticed thru my own observations and in talking to others who come in to the shop, that one fish or one move, can completely change the whole complexion of a tank. We had an emperor angel in our display tank at the shop for several months. He never munched on anything other than zoas. A regular customer of ours and member here, had been asking Kevin about the fish for quite some time. About 3 wks ago and after some doing, we managed to catch the fish out of the display and home it went. The angel then proceeded to eat several corals (we of course took the fish back).Somewhere between our display and buddies tank the angel decided to snap. I also have an angel story...I recently removed a bi-color angel (because he also snapped and started eating corals) and after that my flame angel turned into an a$$. When the flame had the bi-color to chase around he left every thing else alone. Now he has taken to asserting himself every chance he can. I wonder sometimes what goes on in those little brains.

When the Emperor came back did he go back to his old ways in the DT or did he continue to eat corals? It is strange how some fish can change so quickly like that.

same story with me, i had a unicorn tang in my tank, nice size about 2.5lb, never bothered anything,, then one day i was watching tv and looked over at the tank, and he was having my GSP colony for supper. I flipped him a hand jesture and two mintues later he splashed water out of the tank at me.:twised::question::lol:

Um...actually the angel didnt make it back into the display....he is in a large fowlr tank now with several largish fish waiting to go to a project at a local car dealership. We wernt gonna take the chance putting him back in our display. Its kinda too bad because he is one of my favorite resident fish at the store.

A fish that eats GSP??? Did you give him a golden tank and name him king??? I know of a few peeps that would pay big bucks for a GSP eating fish.

I lost my new Chocolate Tang. :sad:
I found him dead this morning and am feeling very guilty as he was the picture of health while in QT. If you've read this thread you know I've been battling an Ich problem; brought to the tank via my Harlequin Tuskfish. After extensive research and advice from members, I decided to leave all the fish in the 225 gal and let them run the Ich gauntlet. I fed them 3 times per day, soaked all their food in garlic and Selcon, run a 25 watt UV sterilizer 24/7, a diatom filter for several hours each day and change 25 gals of water every week: Hoping that healthy fish, with good water conditions could survive the Ich. Well, it only took 6 days for the Chocolate Tang to succumb to it, and my SF Tang while still eating isn't in much better shape. The Tuskfish also has a good dose of Ich as well, but is at least eating and behaving normally. All 12 Chromis, Angelfish, LM Blenny, Hawkfish, Foxface and Bannerfish are in good shape.
So, what to do with the Sailfin? I can catch him and treat in hospital tank. If he survives that, then what do I do? Put him back in the DT to become infected all over again, or will he be able to fight it off after surviving it once. Another course of action is to go and buy a larger QT tank, remove all the fish, and leave the DT fallow for 8 weeks. But how will that many fish make out in a 30 or 40 gal hospital tank for 8 weeks? Might be doing more harm than good. While the other fish are fine does this mean I can never put another tang in this tank again? I just don't know what to do!

I feel for ya and hear ya. I struggle with the whole qt/hospital tank thing for bigger fish like tangs and large angels. They really seem to not handle they cramped quarters and lack of security very well. Then there is the whole netting of the fish issue that I wont go in to. A tough decision for you for sure.

Oh no! I am so sorry to hear this :(

May sound harsh but to live in my tank, the fishes have to be able to survive and fight off ich. Its just not avoidable in my tank and has been there going on three years now.

I have yet to loose a fish to ich in the display though, only in QT.

Right now I monitor it closely and as long as there is no scratching or signs of stress, I just feed well and keep the water clean. It seems to come and go. Before adding my Powder Brown, I think I was getting way ahead of the ich--he seems to be stressing the tank enough now to cause a new outbreak.

If a fish were to ever get bad enough to need QT, I would probably Qt them and sell. Replace the fish with another who can hopefully fight it off. Wouldn't be easy to do but like you said, if you QT them and put them back, they will most likely just get really bad again.

Its such a hard thing to deal with :(

Good luck!

If it was my tank, I would pull all the fish and treat.

If that is what you are going to do then I would set up more then 1 quarantine tank, maybe even 3 or 4 to spread out the fish load.

I have an empty hagen 48 (48x12x20) It just needs some cleaning if you want to borrow it.

Thanks.
You know what really gets to me? My SF Tang has been with me for over a year, living in my 90 gal. One of the reasons I wanted another tank was I felt he needed a bigger home. He wasn't aggressive or anything, I just wanted a bigger tank for him as well as some other larger fish. So I put him in the new larger tank and now I may be killing him. Pi$$es me Off! I sure hope he makes it. If not, I may rethink the whole purpose for this new tank. It was supposed to be all about the fish. (Large swimming area, bare bottom, and big skimmer.) The 90 gal was going to be pretty much all corals and just a few fish. The way I feel right now I may end up with two SPS tanks. At least when I lose a coral I don't feel as bad.

Man that is rough. I hate to loose fish too. Thats why I have stopped with QT.

The last QT I did was hypo. 6 weeks no fish in the display and fish in 1.008. Fish got ich about 3 weeks after going back to the display. No new fish added. Tried it all over again for 8 weeks and lost my favorite fish in QT this time. Again, still got ich. Never again. I did a ridiculous amounts of reading and found the longest documented case of ich surviving without a host was just over 3 months. Not all strains can do this and I think its rare but who knows what strain is in the tank...there are apparently hundreds.

Some are thought to have a decent immunity to hypo now too. Why not? Everything evolves. Especially hardy parasites like ich.

I am one that believes if this problem is not dealt with from the beginning at wholesalers and collectors holding tanks, it will get out of hand one day to the point the ich parasite will be a "super bug" kind of thing. May get hard to treat.

Its hard to treat already...hypo is not always going to work and copper destroys a tangs gut fauna. I would never copper tangs personally. I think it takes years off their lives.

Where did you read about copper destroying a tangs gut fauna? I had to treat my achilles 3 yrs ago with cupramine (he had marine velvet)

My older brother is a marine biologist and has told me.

Here is Bob Fenner talking a bit about it:

<Surgeonfishes have a mix of microbes, bacteria, protozoans... more that like E. coli in our intestines, or better, similar organisms in termites allowing them to utilize cellulose... With loss of these obligate co-digesters, the animal hosts suffer from nutritional deficiencies... Where do the Surgeonfishes et al. pick up these helpers? From ingestion in the wild (sediment, detritus, fecal pellets... Perhaps having a not-too clean system, with other healthy Tangs would re-seed the impugned fishes guts. Bob Fenner>

<Likely a cumulative nutritional disorder... very common with this species (and other tangs)... due often to the "urban-myth" of feeding them terrestrial greens like the nutritionally zero lettuces... A related possibility is the loss of gut fauna from exposure to copper, other medications, that kill off the necessary microbes in their "stomachs"... Does any of this sound familiar? There are other less likely causes of mortality... internal parasites, genetic defects... Bob Fenner>

Do some searching on the web...there is plenty of info about tangs and meds.

The choice at the time was to lose him within hours or treat, I'm still glad I treated

Yeah, I read your old thread the other night. I too have been reading everything I can find on Ich, and I still don't know the answer. (Apparently there already is a Super Parasite showing up now).
I quarantine all my new fish in a permanent QT set-up with live rock, skimmer, etc. for 2 to 3 weeks just to observe them, fatten them up, and to make sure they`re healthy before going into the DT. If they do indeed have something I remove them and treat in a other hospital tank. I`ve had good success with quarantining them but not so good when having to treat a fish. Sometimes I think treatment is every bit as bad as the affliction. This time I couldn`t because of the unfortunate arrival times of the two fish I had ordered. In hindsight, I should have set up another QT and put them both in quarantine. Then I wouldn`t have Ich in my system now. I`ve got company coming tonight so there`s not much I can do about it tonight anyway. I`ll think it over tonight and decide to leave them be or remove them all for 8 weeks.

Oh yeah it unavoidable sometimes. I wasn't insinuating that you did the wring thing. Sorry if it came across that way.

I was just warning Lance to be careful and not use copper unless necessary like in your case. Velvet kills within a day sometimes and does need rapid and aggressive treatment. I would would have done the same.