regal tang with ich

[reefpaddler]

Hello I have a regal tang that I recently had the luck to purchase (along with a yellow tang and a sail fin tang) from someone who was not taking good care of their 75 gal tank (also got this). I noticed some white spots on him so I quarantined him in a 29 gal tank and added the recommended dosage of copper. I also did a fresh water dip before quarantine My tang is now looking VERY lethargic (not swimming hardly at all) and is almost covered in white (only a few spots were noticeable at first). Please advise on what I should do! This tang is probably 6-7 years old and was a hardy fish 4 years ago when I owned him. Here are some pics.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Poor fish! You may want to try formalin or a formalin copper mixture. Be sure to dose carefully with the formalin though. Read through the articles for more info.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ichartmar.htm
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ichart2mar.htm

Good luck, I hope the fish pulls through for you!

[Condiman]

Good luck and keep us posted.

[reefpaddler]

well the ich seems to have died but now I have another problem. He has indentions , almost holes around his face and in a straight line down the side of his body. I thought it was lateral line disease but now I'm not sure. Any suggestions?

[FishinInTheDark]

I would agree that it is HLLE. This is a result of poor nutrition and/or poor water quality. You need to make sure he's getting lots of high quality herbivore preparations. Since he's already sick, soaking it in vitamins will help too.

Glad he pulled through the ich outbreak!

[Doctor_Reef]

Ditto's with FITD.... Also Glad he pulled through the ich....

[reefpaddler]

Sorry-More questions. Please help, I don’t want to see these great fish die!

HLLE-do most fish fully recover from this??? I would appreciate anyone sharing their experiences with this.

I still have him in the copper mix-he had a second dose of the ick (or at least showed the same systems-he had started to look less lethargic etc. for about a week after all the white flakes exited from his body but then suddenly started to look down again-this could be the HLLE?)-could there be a third set in there-or maybe some other disease or is this the results of the HLLE??? DOES HE NEED TO COME OUT OF THE COPPER???

I am also wondering if I should treat my other tangs. The only thing I see on my Yellow Tang is a SMALL black tar-looking (?) spot on his upper fin (very small) and I had noticed on the stripped tang when we first got him that it looked as if he had scrapes along his both sides-scratch like, but it went away in about two days so I thought maybe he scrapped up against some rock trying to jump away too fast-they were very skittish at first.

Now I am wondering if both of them need treatments in copper-or is the stress factor/risk outweigh these symptoms? If they do-can I stick them in the same tank as the hippo? Or is that too many fish (three for a 29 gal) in a quarantine tank?