fish died

[cailan]

my powder brown tang died, he had some kind of fungus on him so it didn't really surprise me too much. i had him for about 2 or 3 months and he seemed fine until a couple of weeks ago. all of the other fish in the tank were/are fine. he had alot of ich one morning but it cleared up by that afternoon so i didn't worry too much about it. is ich common on powder browns? i would like to eventually get another one but i wanted to know if i was just unlucky or if they are more suseptible to ich.

[Instar]

All tangs are suseptable to ick it seems and maybe a bit more than some other fish. Powder browns as well. A fuge and stabile day/night temperatures, stabile salinity and tank chemistry will help as will a good healthy tang diet. They eat a lot, and need a lot to eat, especially in the first 6 months of tank life. The real bottom line is stability without sudden temp drops at night.

[cailan]

would a uv sterilizer help any?

[CD]

Sorry to hear about your loss, calian. :(
It sucks, I know.

I don't own a sterilizer, but maybe somebody else could pipe in on that issue. I remember their being a discussion about this awhile back...split decision if I remember correctly. I think Robert uses one 24/7

As far as the ick - all tangs are prone. The Powder Browns are especially delicate and shy though. If you had it for 2-3 months before it started getting sick, it would seem as if there were some stress on that fish being in your tank. What size system do you have? What are the other fish you have? And last question, what were you feeding it?

Wendy

[Ram_Puppy]

Cailan, is this in the same tank as the maroon? I hope she isn't becoming a bully, that could definately stress the tang out. I would suggest testing your water parameters as a baseline for your investigation.

[cailan]

rampuppy- yeah, it's the same tank, that's one of the first things i thought about too. i don't think she picked on him that much but i guess it's a possibilty. parameters are ok and i added some ick attack (organic) and i will do a water change tomorrow.

wendy- i fed him brine shrimp of course with the other fish and i pretty much constantly kept seaweed in there for him. it's a 75 gallon and there is a chromis, ram's maroon clown and a juvie koran angel. the only problem with fish that i can think of is the clown, but i never saw him picking on the tang too much.

[Instar]

I have not used a UV in over 25 years. I prefer a balanced tank, a couple of cleaner shrimp and to employ raising the temp to 84 if I have to. I acclimate very slowly so I don't mess up their mucous secretions with osmotic shock and normally if I have picked healthy fish, they do very well. I have also been known to use a potion as people here would call it and I only used garlic extreme 2x to get a couple of CBB to start eating. My tangs never get ick.

There are quite a few people in MAAST who use UV's with very successful results regarding ick. When they turn the UV's off, their fish ick up again. So that means the root thing that initiates the ick is not fixed by the UV, the UV just keeps it under control in spite of the catalyst that is causing it. I would prefer to fix the system and feeding rituals so that there is no suseptability to ick. Its always present, just not growing. If you wanted to keep a UV around for emergencies or until you figure out what caused the ick in your system, that would not hurt anything. Read up on UV's first because they are dangerous and if you run them too much it will oxydize the fishes membranes and then when you turn it off, back comes the ick immediately. More of an OD than that to your tank and things start suffering. Study the use of UV's before you go down that road. They are effective for all sorts of things when used properly.

[JimD]

Whenever Ive had Ich issues in the past, (almost never) my first line of defence was always raising the temp to 84/86* temporarily, usually no more than a couple of days. It works well. Thats one reason I dont understand why some people insist on keeping their tank temp at or around 76-78*, to me, it seems like a potential breeding ground for cool water pathogens like Ich, seems it would only take a minimum ammount of stress to initiate an attack in cooler water. But thats just me.

[cailan]

thanks for the info, instar and jim. i have a fire shrimp that seemed to take care of some of the ich but what about the fungus.? he was real cloudy looking and he had some kind of stringy stuff in him. could this be related to the ich?

[JimD]

I would imagine that the stringy stuff could have been his slime coat being broken down due to the Ich, since I rarely have disease issues, Im by no means an expert, Im sure theres otheres out there better qualified to accurately answer that question.

[GaryP]

Larry's (Instar) the man when it comes to diseases. Richard is also a very good source of info. Richard fights disease on a regular basis because he's constantly getting in new, stressed fish. He's also one of the few LFS owners that quarantine fish. Drop him a PM, he's very helpful. He may not catch this thread, but he's good about answering PM's.

My opinion is that ich is usually the result of some form of stress in the tank. Most Tang's are carriers of ich but it doesn't get to the full blown stage until some sort of environmental, nutritional or behaviorial source of stress occurs.
I'd take a look at what is going on in your tank. What has changed?

Gary

[cailan]

one of the fish has a white patch on his head and i'm not sure what it is. any ideas?
instar mentioned the temp. drop in the tank over night so i checked it out this morning and it was at about 72 so i turned up the heater. will heating up the tank correct the problem or should i treat it with medication. it's a fish only tank.

[cailan]

i got some melafix to put in the tank to take care of anything that might be in there and i'm working on trying to bring up the temp in the tank. the problem is my mom doesn't like turning on the house heater up stairs at night so i guess the tank heater kind of gets track during the temperature change at night. i'll keep a close eye on the temperature for a while.

[JimD]

Sounds like youre on the right track, good luck!

[Reef69]

Ive noticed ich appears more with temp. changes..so try to keep it steady..good luck

[CD]

i fed him brine shrimp of course with the other fish


Also, I would strongly suggest switching to mysis shrimp in lieu of brine. Brine doesn't have *near* the nutrients in them as mysis. My fish may get brine shrimp only about once a week. Check out the labels for nutrition levels (compare) next time you are in the store buying frozen...I like Hikari the best.

Wendy

[cailan]

thanks for all the advice guys, i appreciate it. i'll go ahead and look into getting mysis shrimp.
again thanks.