Tangs not meant to be or what???
 

2 months ago lost a very nice clown tang only 3-4 weeks in without any signs og sickness.
Today lost naso tang only 2-3 weeks in too. He did have some spots on his fins. Maybe 4-5 in total, feeding like crazy, did not see any issues with him, but had to treat the tank for second time for fluke parasite with prazipro, found naso dead next day... Is it the species or me?.. Too afraid to buy another tang now.
Other fish in the tank. Yellow boxfish ( a bit ichy), six line wrasse, blue cheek trigger, 2 true percula clowns, some other red wrasse in 120G
Water is tested couple times a month.


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Where did these tang come from?

Clown tang from Wei's in Calgary. Naso from Bayside Corals in Saskatoon.


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This has happened to me before, all is good for about a week, then you find them dead. I now have other tangs that I have had for 4 years now.

Naso was doing great at the shop and in my tank... He was most active, eating all types a food... Crazy... I wanted blond naso and hypo tang, now having second thoughts about it


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Before you get any more fish you should remove all your existing fish and treat them for ich. Then leave your tank fish less for 72 days. Only then will it be safe to add new fish. New arrivals should be quarantined for at least 30 days.

How do you keep the fish for 72 days outside of the tank? I mean no live rock etc... Do you change water every day? I only have small treatment tank of 20G.. Dont think that will be big enough for 6-7 fish.


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No, you would need a suitable size tank with hiding places and some method of filtration. My 90 QT tank has a large aquaclear and about 60lb of live rock.

While the above advice is great, it's not practical for most people.

Did you name the fish? I find if I name them they die..

I have used a product that is reef safe for corals and inverts with great success in the past called "rid ich" it won't discolour silicone I just wish I could find it again locally. There is a powder blue with ich I want but wish to pre treat in qt first

Side note: this is why I let the wife name our kids as well... Just sayin

Well the other option is to wait for all your fish to die, wait another 72 days then get new fish.

If you have room for a reef tank you have room for a QT tank. You may need a bigger one due to the fact ich made it into your display but you can run it just for this period then sell the tank and get a smaller tank to use when you add one or 2 or 3 fish at a time ect.

Anyone used Hikari Ich-X or Polyp Lab Medic Parasite Treatment? These are reef safe treatments. I was thinking to remove the one fish that is badly infected to treat him with copper in a separate tank and treat the whole tank with one of these treatments. While these milder treatments may or may not work, infected fish can be caught easy, since its box fish and treated with aggressive type medicine.


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First, there are no reef safe treatments. Second, if one fish has it, all potentially have or will have it. Many tanks can do fine with ich in the system, never seeing an outbreak, but it's still there waiting.
The only real way is above, removing all fish for treatment, and leaving the tank empty for 3 months. Otherwise, it's a gamble.

I once had an ich outbreak, fed heavily with garlic, and it went away for years. Another time I had an outbreak (recently) and lost most of my fish. So, you just have to decide which way you want to go :)

People just never learn... I have pretty well given up preaching on this topic. The prevention is so much easier than the cure, and laziness, rationalization and ignorance are all just poor excuses.

Best operating practices is one discussion, but it should also be mentioned that Tangs are not always the easiest fish to care for. Having a proper QT system, and following procedures previously mentioned isn't going to guarantee results. You could still have aggression problems, nutrition issues, or general water condition problems. I love having tangs, but some are easier than others, and often they can have you pulling your hair out.

I know a lot of people don't like UV's but just throwing it out there.

We had some bad ich outbreaks about a year back, our powder blue was just covered with it. Not being reasonable to set up quarantines for all of our fish, I found a good UV system. Took about 6 weeks till there was no visible signs of ich, ran the UV for another 6 weeks to be safe and took it out.
The UV wasn't cheap but cost less that replacing our fish.

Sorry to hear about he loss of your tangs. Have you thought about being patient and waiting for a good healthy one to outgrow another tank locally? Two of our tangs came from other tanks, already a good size and healthy.

What's the downside of UVs? I wouldn't keep tangs without one.

I wouldn't waste my money on UV. It's not going to stop or prevent ich. ich is always in the tank unless you take measures to remove it as discussed above.

+1. Also unless you have a huge tank, mulitple tangs is just going to continue to cause you issues. Tangs are naturally prone to ich, and sticking them in a confined space only makes it way worse. Those fish swim miles a day in the ocean. If you try cramming several in a tank any less then 150, I believe you will not have very good success. Not to say it can't be done, but I personally dont like taking fish out of the ocean and putting them in a tank that isn't suitable for them and then watching them slowly die.

From what I read, a lot of people think UV's will kill off the good as well as the bad. Makes sense in theory.

As for effectiveness of UV on ich... maybe my timing was just really good but I went from every cycle of ich being worse than the last to a clean tank in about 6 weeks. Tank has been clear from ich since.

No, ich just isn't visible and active right now. I'll bet you, if you hit a power outage and temp drops drastically, or some other major stressor, you'll see ich again. Also, I'd bet that without the UV, you would have seen similar results.

Sure, UV can kill (or otherwise impact the ich lifecycle) but it's never going to clear a system of the parasite.

Fair enough. I have no way of telling if the ich is lying dormant in the tank now.

I have added three decent sized tangs since then. Had to black out the tank for days, add mirrors for distraction, and rework some rock to slow down the fighting.

Having a sample size of one, I really haven't done enough research to say UV's are the answer or not. Just seems to have worked well for me at the time.

I really don't want to get into a UV debate, but I've always used one, and will continue to use it. To think a UV will be a miracle care taker for your tank is foolish, but I also think it's foolish to think it doesn't serve any benefits.

I have been keeping porcupine puffers for years and this species is another ick-magnet, like so many tangs. The only way I've had any success keeping one ick-free is when I have a UV sterilizer on its tank. Once I had one that we had for years and it was healthy, but I pulled its UV to put on a tank with a powder blue tang, and sure enough, within a week or two, Poofie developed ick.

UV will help reduce the number of ick spores in the water as long as it is used correctly (i.e. good bulb, high enough wattage, slow water flow = longer disinfection time) and that is what it did for Poofie. When I took the UV off Poofie's tank, the poor guy got icky next time he was stressed. Up till then he'd been ick-free for over a year.

As others have stated, UV should never be considered a cure-all or even that effective as a cure once your tank is heavily infested. Too often the fish will be too far gone and the ick will be too prevalent in your display tank for the UV to work as you hope. However, as a component of an overall ick-prevention program, my own experience has shown me that a good UV sterilizer (high wattage, low flow) has a place in it. I now keep one on my puffer tank at all times and its kept the puffer ick-free (knock on wood, knock on wood).

I know several reefers I respect who swear by UV and others who are completely convinced UV is useless in a reef system. Each reefer has to decide for themselves whether a UV is something they want to invest in.

Anthony

Poofie??? :)

Well, when it got scared at first, it went "POOF" into a big spikey balloon:wink:

Tank transfer method reads like a real good way to go if one has the equipment to do it.