tman23
New Member
Well, I have recently introduced a yellow tang into my tank.
Not long after I introduced him, I started noticing tiny black spots on his body.
After some research I found that this appears to be something commonly called "black ich" that affects yellow tangs.
From my previous experience/research with ich, I have come to the conclusion that rather than doing anything drastic to treat ich (catching and quarantining all fish, etc), that keeping good water conditions, stress at a minimum, and running a uv part of the day on a low flow rate is a decent remedy/preventative measure in a well established reef tank (except perhaps for bad cases).
I supposed that with keeping the fish healthy and having stress minimized many times the fish will be able to fight the parasites before things get out of hand, and later recover.
However, I have not had much experience with this so called "black ich."
I would like to hear from individuals who have had experience with this particular pathogen.
I am not so much interested in getting "best guess" advice, but I want to hear from individuals who have personally dealt with black ich.
If you wouldn't mind, please explain what you did to treat (or what you decided not to do) and how things turned out. Feel free to include as many details as you would like.
I am hoping that by keeping stress levels low, running a 25 watt UV sterilizer a bit more often than usual with a low flow rate, and trying to keep the fish well fed that he/she will be able to fight this parasite and fully recover.
If possible, I would like to refrain from attempting to catch the little guy (likely without much success) and stressing him more in the process.
I look forward to your thoughts!
Not long after I introduced him, I started noticing tiny black spots on his body.
After some research I found that this appears to be something commonly called "black ich" that affects yellow tangs.
From my previous experience/research with ich, I have come to the conclusion that rather than doing anything drastic to treat ich (catching and quarantining all fish, etc), that keeping good water conditions, stress at a minimum, and running a uv part of the day on a low flow rate is a decent remedy/preventative measure in a well established reef tank (except perhaps for bad cases).
I supposed that with keeping the fish healthy and having stress minimized many times the fish will be able to fight the parasites before things get out of hand, and later recover.
However, I have not had much experience with this so called "black ich."
I would like to hear from individuals who have had experience with this particular pathogen.
I am not so much interested in getting "best guess" advice, but I want to hear from individuals who have personally dealt with black ich.
If you wouldn't mind, please explain what you did to treat (or what you decided not to do) and how things turned out. Feel free to include as many details as you would like.
I am hoping that by keeping stress levels low, running a 25 watt UV sterilizer a bit more often than usual with a low flow rate, and trying to keep the fish well fed that he/she will be able to fight this parasite and fully recover.
If possible, I would like to refrain from attempting to catch the little guy (likely without much success) and stressing him more in the process.
I look forward to your thoughts!
