cleaner wrasse

[copperband]

ok i have a yellow tang i bought yesterday and i think it may have started to get ick i feed with garlic and i have a cleaner shrimp but im not sure if it will clean the tang and i cant get a cleaner wrasse til i upgrade and i dont know when that will be because im overstocked as it is so my question is when i upgrade im going to get a cleaner wrasse so can you give me some info on them thanks

[lhoy]

In general, cleaner wrasses should stay in the ocean because they really don't survive in the aquarium.

Lee

[copperband]

thanks so do you think the shrimp will get rid of the ick

[lhoy]

Not necessarily. No way to know for sure frankly (at least that I know of).

Lee

[copperband]

k thanks

[bigmoe21]

my neon goby does a really good job..if it can go in your tank. it got the ick gone from my hippo

[captexas]

Yeah, cleaner wrasses are neat to watch as they "service" other fish, but they need an ocean environment to survive. There is just not enough in our tanks for them to feed off of and survive long term.

Tangs are naturally prone to ich when they get stressed. You just added the fish to your tank so of course it is stressed being in a new environment. I would continue with the garlic and have some patience with it. Maybe keep your lights off for a day or so to allow it to slowly relax and become accustomed to it's new home. I've had success with Kent's Garlic Xtreme, adding it to the food and a few drops to the tank water. Other people have just used natural garlic extract the same way. As with anything, it's not an instant cure, but the fish should hopefully show signs of improvement in another day or two. I believe another natural method is you can raise the temperature of your tank to about 80 to 82 degrees. There is a temperature to where the ich can't reproduce/survive. Might do a search on that.

As far as other methods, cleaner shrimp are hit and miss, and I think it still comes down to giving it some time. A few years ago I did have a pair of neon gobies that worked as cleaners as mentioned by BigMoe. They were kind of cool as they lived in a colony of zoo's.

[envy]

its not that ich won't survive it will go through the cycle faster and fall off. thats when its easier to get rid of since it need a host to reproduce think of it like a virus it needs a host to survive without it will die. just keep an eye on the other fish to make sure its not spreading. if you dont have any type of inverts, coral, etc.. if just a fish only tank you can you coppersafe just remove all carbon from your tank. thats another way of getting rid of ich also like stated above raise your temp a bit.

[alton]

I am going to break ranks here and cross the lines on the Cleaner Wrasse issue. If you have a large fish tank, Triggers, Large Angels, and Tangs your tank will require a cleaner wrasse. I have had one in my tanks since the early 90's. I traded him in for a cleaner shrimp around 2000 which worked good for about a year until he got lazy and quit cleaning my clown trigger which he then became food. So I bought another cleaner wrasse and have had him/her for about six/seven years. Cleaner wrasse are like Copper Band Butterfly's. If you have natural food for them then get one, or let them stay in the store/ocean. I tried two Neon Cleaner Gobies in another tank and neither one lasted very long.

[copperband]

k thanks well i still need to upgrade before i can get any new fish and i do have corals so ya