Damn annoying hippo tang

[trilinearmipmap]

I have had a small (2") hippo tang for 2 or 3 months now.

He has broken out in spots on and off but never seemed sick.

At first it was one or two spots that looked like "ich", then they would go away for a week or two, then they would come back.

Lately he has spots on him all the time, 3 or 4 spots at a time. The spots are different colors and shapes, white or brown, one spot was black.

No other fish in the tank have spots.

I don't know what kind of disease this fish has.

All water parameters are where they should be, no detectable nitrates. The tank is undercrowded.

Lately I have fed nori soaked in garlic daily and it made the spots get worse. So much for alternative medicine.

My worry is that I stock up the tank with more fish, then a disease outbreak happens that wipes them all out.

Anyway I have several choices here:

Choice A: All fish into a quarantine, treat with hyposalinity and/or medication and keep the reef tank empty of fish for two months.

Choice B: Ignore the problem and hope that it will go away.

Choice C: Euthanize the hippo tang to save his tankmates from getting sick.

Other choices that I think won't work are:

Choice D: Remove the hippo tang and medicate him -- he will just get sick again when he is put back into the reef tank.

Choice E: Medicate the reef tank -- not advised by most people.

Someone suggested neon gobies but J & L has none in stock.

Any input or advice would be welcome, I am leaning towards choice A or choice C.

[gbeef]

if you have a quarantine id take advantage of it.

[Samw]

Probably Ick.

If you have sufficient aeration, I'd go with B.

If you medicate him in a Q. Tank, chances are that you already have Ick in your tank so when you put him back in the main tank, he'll get it again anyways.

If you quarantine everything and clean out your main tank, not only is it a lot of work, chances are good that he'll pick up Ick again whenever you get new livestock.

My blue tang has had ick on and off for 2 years even though I have cleaner shrimps and neon gobies. The ick is hardly a problem as the tang has grown fast, is fat, and has solid blue coloration. He's actually outgrown my tank now and I'll be looking to move/sell/trade him soon.

[Quinster]

A friend of mine had a hippo tang who showed the same characteristics as yours...some days would look fine others covered in white spots, he tried all medications, freshwater dips, cleaner wrasses and shrimp, nothing cleared it up. He had the fish 5 years in a 90G and the fish over doubled in size and never showed any ill effects from the spots upto the day he tore down the tank and not sure who eventually got the fish....don't know what the moral of the story is but it looked good some days ...bad others...ate like a pig and grew pretty fast.

[trilinearmipmap]

OK I will think about it, I am not sure what I want to do.

[BrainVat]

Hippo Tangs have almost no defense against ich in captivity. They often rely on other organisms to clean it off for them, but you will still see it on them from time to time.

My Hippo came home from the store with ich. You have to understand that ich is almost everywhere in small amounts and that most fish fight it off regularly using their mucosal secretions as defense. Hippos simply don't do it as well.

I noticed that mine "hovered" near my coral banded shrimp quite often. The CBS wasn't smart enough to pick up on the clue, but I was. I bought two cleaner shrimp the next night and it took about three days for the hippo to train them how to clean ich.

He still gets flakes on them from time to time, but it's the sort of thing where he gets them in the morning for a few hours and they are gone by the afternoon.

If cleaner shrimp aren't to your liking, you can also try neon gobies. They are long and black with a blue streak (opposite coloration to hippos) and are a more aesthetic choice than the shrimp. Cleaner wrasse are NOT the right thing to use as they tend to be more symbiotic with much larger species of fish.

Just bear in mind that you will find a few flakes on him from time to time unless you try other forms of filtration. It's completely natural and harmless if you provide him with an appropriate cleaner and shouldn't endanger other healthy animals in your tank.