Purple tang has flukes :(

[THE WOOKIE]

Ok. First, you need to actually develop a plan. What you are doing now is going to kill your fish rather than help them. Seeing as you can't figure out what your fish actually has (it's not always clear because diseases and symptoms are similar), you should focus on what is most likely. The two most common diseases in our tanks are ich and velvet. Both of these are cured using the same exact medicine and method, which is copper.

Your fish will not live long with velvet, but it can go awhile with ich or flukes. My recommendation would be to treat with Cupramine for 14-21 days, followed by a week of observation. It might make sense at that point to move to other treatments, but let's get to that point first.

BTW, velvet and ich are easily passed to every fish in the tank while flukes are not. I would definitely do the copper.

Also, what is in your display tank right now? You have to have EVERY fish out of the display and in quarantine, otherwise you are doing this all for nothing and totally wasting your time.

Stock list:
1 Radiant wrasse
1 yellow coris wrasse
2 maroon clowns
1 pinkspot goby
1 tiny red firefish
the PT
all my coral and a maxima clam

 

[Andy V]

Ok, so exactly what I said...you need to remove EVERY fish or this will all be for nothing, as the fish in your tank are already infected even if they are not showing signs of it. The parasites will die in the display without fish hosts.

The only way to rid the tank of disease at this point is to quarantine ALL fish for 80-90 days (based on scientific research into life cycle of parasites of concern) and treat with copper if we are dealing with ich or marine velvet.

Quarantine is the only solution even if it's not those two diseases. In that case you will have to treat with other medicines.

A bunch of people may chime in and say to run UV, which of course will help for awhile, but the fish will die eventually without a cure. A lot of fish live for decades in the wild, while hobbyists somehow define "success" as keeping a fish for a few months or a year.

UV is basically letting them die slowly instead of quickly.

What you do at this point is your choice and it sucks...believe me I have gone through it. But this is why we are supposed to quarantine to begin with.

 

[PSU4ME]

Once you get the copper (cupramine) to a .5ppm level you'll need to hold that for 14 days......which will be easy if you run your tank fallow for at least 8 weeks.

Here is a very good article by a respected researcher the field:
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-diseases-treatments/52236-curing-fish-marine-ich.html

 

[Andy V]

Once you get the copper (cupramine) to a .5ppm level you'll need to hold that for 14 days......which will be easy if you run your tank fallow for at least 8 weeks.

Here is a very good article by a respected researcher the field:
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/fish-diseases-treatments/52236-curing-fish-marine-ich.html

And just to be clear...cupramine in a quarantine tank.

 

[PSU4ME]

^+1 to the above

 

[THE WOOKIE]

UPDATE: treated tank with prazipro and the tang is doing 100% better. No more gasping or twitching, and the ich is almost gone just a few spots left.

 

[Andy V]

Prazi pro DOES NOT cure ich!

 

[THE WOOKIE]

And just to be clear...cupramine in a quarantine tank.

once the fish builds up a immunity to the ich wont the parasites starve to death if they can not attch to the fish? Running my tank for 8 weeks fishless is not a option for me because my 45 cube is too small for a tang and not set up yet and my only other option is my old 29

 

[THE WOOKIE]

Prazi pro DOES NOT cure ich!

I know it wont cure ich, i added it just incase the tang did have flukes and it is doing much better. So it must of had some sort of parasite on or in it that was weakening its immune system because it is fighting off the ich now

 

[Andy V]

No. First, you are assuming the fish WILL build an immunity, which is far from guaranteed. It may die first too. Second, read up on ich from reliable sources...the immunity is only temporary and it is not really immunity...the ich is still present. Third, you are also assuming that all of the fish will build this immunity at the same time. They won't.

Sorry, but you can do it right, or roll the dice.

 

[THE WOOKIE]

No. First, you are assuming the fish WILL build an immunity, which is far from guaranteed. It may die first too. Second, read up on ich from reliable sources...the immunity is only temporary and it is not really immunity...the ich is still present. Third, you are also assuming that all of the fish will build this immunity at the same time. They won't.

Sorry, but you can do it right, or roll the dice.

I would QT all my fish and let the tank run fallow for the 2 months if i could, but im not going to cram a 3" tang in a 29 with 6 other fish.

 

[JohnK]

Then it sounds like you are planning to go with "managing" the ick. If that is the case, as Andy said, don't talk yourself into thinking that it's going to go away. When fish develop an "immunity" they don't become impervious to ick, they just resist it better but it's still there and waiting for anything that will give it the chance to flare up again. Not seeing many or any spots doesn't mean it's almost gone, it just means the infection isn't very obvious and is mostly confined to the gills where you can't see it.