ID Black dots on yellow tang?

[danny zubot]

Just noticed today that my yellow tang has developed black dots on it. They are very small, the size of ick. Is this a different type of ick? SO far the fish is fine, still eating and not scratching. Does anyone know what this is? I find it curious that this is the first sign of an illness in my tank in years, and that it has only occured since I lost my cleaner shrimp last week.

[Lance]

Just noticed today that my yellow tang has developed black dots on it. They are very small, the size of ick. Is this a different type of ick? SO far the fish is fine, still eating and not scratching. Does anyone know what this is? I find it curious that this is the first sign of an illness in my tank in years, and that it has only occured since I lost my cleaner shrimp last week.


Sounds like Black Spot Disease. Quite common on Tangs.

[danny zubot]

Thanks. I just looked it up and found a pic confirming it is black spot or black ick. It says the treatment is the same as other forms of ick. Bummer. Well, hopefully my new cleaner shrimp get here safely. Perhaps they will aid in this fight.
http://www.fishbase.org/diseases/DisPic/BlksptD1.jpg

[naesco]

It is a fairly simple fix.
Remove the tang and give her a fresh water dip until you see the black spots go away. The black spots are actually worms not a parasite like ich.
Make sure that the ph and the temperature is the same as you main tank.

[danny zubot]

How long do you dip the fish for each time?

[Delphinus]

4 minutes ought to do it.

It's a flatworm so one treatment is usually enough to get them to literally fall off. In really bad cases maybe two treatments a day or two apart.

FWIW, and maybe this is bad of me, I don't know, but when I was advised what to do, I was told "don't bother matching pH, just use tap water, but DO match the temperature") and the tang was fine and I never had to do it again. (Which is probably good because I can usually catch a fish once, and ever after that they're onto me and I can't get near them with a net.) I'm not sure what you'd have to use if you wanted to match pH. If you could match pH I'm sure it would be easier on the fish.

[naesco]

You are right with the black worm procedure. Adjusting the ph is not necessary
If you are looking at a sick or dying fish everything that can lessen the stress is important though.
You can buy a small bottle of ph-up or ph down at the lfs

[Leah]

I had a yellow tang with black spot and I took him out and gave him a fresh water dip and put him in a 10 gal tank for about a week, if I remember correctly. And returned him to the main tank and never saw it again on him.

[danny zubot]

It's no big deal to adjust the ph. I just don't want to leave the fish in too long. Thanks for everyone's input, I'll let you know how things turn out.

[Delphinus]

They'll be fine for much longer than 4 minutes, but 4 minutes was what I found to be adequate for complete removal of the flatworms.

[danny zubot]

What are the odds that the cleaner shrimp I ordered will remidy this for me? They will be here tomorrow.

[naesco]

What are the odds that the cleaner shrimp I ordered will remidy this for me? They will be here tomorrow.

The odds are zero.
What's up? Half a dozen reefers have given you the same advice?
Have you dipped your yellow tang?

[danny zubot]

Whats up is that I can't catch him.:lol: I will continue trying its just that I'll have to rip down the entire tank to do so.

[naesco]

Whats up is that I can't catch him.:lol: I will continue trying its just that I'll have to rip down the entire tank to do so.

lol

[Delphinus]

How big is he Danny?

If he's small enough, get an empty Coca-Cola 2l bottle, rip off the label, cut off the top, rinse it etc. and put it in the tank with some mysis or other favourite food. Yank it out when he swims into it (you'll only get 1 or 2 shots at this before he clues in).

If he's too big for a pop bottle trap, maybe get some clear acrylic or glass even for baffles, whatever you may have lying around or whatever is easiest to get ahold of, and then corral him into the pop bottle or net.

Good luck!

[danny zubot]

Well, I ripped down half the tank and finally got him. Did the dip for 4 minutes and a good potion of the spots fell off. Let him recover in a separate bin of salt water for a couple of hours and dipped him again. He's fine after the second dip, but still has a couple of spots on him. Should I risk a third just to be safe? Right now he's swimming around in the bin, and his respiration seems normal.

[naesco]

Well, I ripped down half the tank and finally got him. Did the dip for 4 minutes and a good potion of the spots fell off. Let him recover in a separate bin of salt water for a couple of hours and dipped him again. He's fine after the second dip, but still has a couple of spots on him. Should I risk a third just to be safe? Right now he's swimming around in the bin, and his respiration seems normal.

Try once more to get the spots off her. They are probably dead and just stuck in the mucous coating but the fish if out of your display tank and you do not want to do it again.
Give your net a freshwater dip or use a different net.

[danny zubot]

I think 2 would have done the trick but I gave it one more for luck. THe brown spots are gone now, and the fish is in the tank recovering. It's swimming around slowly, and a bit disoriented but I think it will be fine. Hopefully I got the treatment done before the parasite had a chance to move on with it's life cycle. Time will tell.

[ScubaGirl]

We did the freshwater dip to our tang tonight and he died. :cry:

Really nervous about getting another one if they are prone to disease.

[danny zubot]

Sorry to hear that. What do you think happened? Perhaps it was too far gone by the time your treated it?

[ScubaGirl]

His fins looked pretty tattered when we got him. We are the third owner of this tank so we don't fully know the history of the fish/live rock, etc. We were told that the first owner had it (and the fish) for 6 years, second owner for a couple of months and then we've had it for a week. Two fish have now died in the last 3 weeks but the water is testing fine. We don't have a qt set up yet so that may have made the difference here. We were doing the garlic soaked food for the week we've owned it. Hard to say. I've seen worse cases of ick and the fish survived.

We really enjoyed the yellow tang so it was a bit heart breaking, especially being Christmas and all. We're going to let it settle down a bit and see if we lose anything else before replacing him.