regal tang has white spots

[gina]

i have noticed today that my regal tang has some white pin head spots on it. he is also brushing up agianst the live rock. i am new to this hobby and have read some books, i think the fish has ick or white spot.
i have a 90 gal reef tank with invertebrates and about 8 other fish every thing looks good except my regal. i do not have a quarentein tank so what do i do now.

i have never had a fish tank before, so i will have many questions for all you more experienced people.

thank you for any help you can give me

[Chryocon]

Best thing to do is put him in a quarintine tank where you can treat him with chemicals etc.... if not I have heard of great succes with dipping food in garlic (I probably said the wrong thing LOL). Anways you can count on PH to give you a nice definition of your problem and 3 or 4 ways to solve it an a few hours.... he seems to always do this :)

[phistio]

yes...your tang has ich...

if you run a search on "ich" you should find several threads on how to treat it.

good luck! :wink:

[on_fire_8]

First I would up your tank to 80-84 degrees. Ick has a hard time living over 80 degrees.

[Pineapple House]

Since you don't have any quaratine tank, the best thing would be to feed foods soaked in garlic.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/garlicfaqs.htm


This should also give you some information:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...rder=descending

PH =)

[Chryocon]

Wow :!: I actually got the garlic thing right..........I am starting to remember things :shock: ......it scares me :?

[BigFish]

Try shock treatment, Put him in a bowl of fresh water (no salt but well filtered) Leave him in for 30 sec mabe less at a time, the fish will go into shock but he will live. Do it often mabe twice a day. this worked on my blue tang he lived but it was a close one for awhile. Ask somebody smarter than me before you do it.

[phistio]

IMO a fresh water bath should be one of the last resorts.

i had a yellow tang once, and i gave it a freshwater bath...it worked, but if i could do it all again, i would have tried about 12 other things first before i would do a freshwater bath.

respectively (in order of attempts) i would try:

natural predation (cleaners...shrimps or wrasse)

garlic

q-tank

hyposalinity in the q-tank

freshwater dip

copper medicine in the q-tank

[Samurai]

Unfortunately Blue Tangs are very, very susceptible to ick and lateral line disease (supposedly they are more resillient to it if they are kept in groups- but that reaquires a huge tank). I agree with Phistio, a couple of cleaner shrimp probably couldn't hurt. Even if the tang didn't let them help him out, the other fish probably would take advantage of their services and you would have a couple more cool and helpful little creatures in your tank. Just make sure the tank has never had any copper based medications used in it and that you have enough iodine to ensure proper molting for the shrimp otherwise they won't last long. Food dipped in garlic is supposed to really help. I have heard only good things about it, but it is really more preventative medicine than treatment. As far as a quarantine tank goes all you need is a little 10 gallon tank (shouldn't cost more than $15) with a bare bottom and some cycled saltwater. I would try the cleaner shrimp first if possible because it's pretty likely that your tang will have this problem again and again without them.