Yellow Tang in Copper with Pink/Red Streaks and Blotches

[gunflintcamper]

So Wednesday night we pulled our fish from display to a 25g for HT. Tang had ich.

Display is going fallow. Used tank water and some bioballs to start HT. Also 2 small clowns and a coral beauty in with him. CB showed 2 dots but all spots are gone on both fish.

We’ve been slowly ramping up Copper Power since Wednesday (5 days ago) ...adding about 3-4ml every 12 hours. Currently at 1.5...trying to get to 2.5 to begin 30 days.

Friday (3 days ago) the tang had some red pinkish blotches and along his lateral line. Fed nori, pellets, and frozen mysis and kept him calm and he looked perfectly fine over the weekend. Today the red and pink are back worse.

We have cleaned the bottom through a filter sock but no water change yet as ammonia badge looks fine. Planning to change some water tonight.

I have selcon and garlic guard coming tomorrow.

What is it??? Is this just stress?? Should we continue upping copper? How long do I wait before adding another treatment? Also is anything safe anyway with copper?

Also....Yes I know the tank is in the sun and we realized it after setting it up late at night...but then when the sun hits the tank all the fish get so happy!! So we were planning to leave it there.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yellow tangs often develop septicemia. They also develop that redness due to issues with the water. I wish here was a better way to measure ammonia when dosing copper power, I don’t trust badges, but the cp interferes with salicylate tests. Your fish doesn’t seem to badly affected.

For active protozoan infections, you need to get copper levels up to full ASAP. This slowly raising copper stems from the old copper/citric acid formulations. Those had to be dosed and retested to get the copper up without overshooting the mark. For some reason, that got over-extrapolated to organically bound coppers. If you know how exact water volume, you can just add a full dose. If you are unsure, better to add half a dose, then the second half a few hours later.
Jay

 

[gunflintcamper]

Yellow tangs often develop septicemia. They also develop that redness due to issues with the water. I wish here was a better way to measure ammonia when dosing copper power, I don’t trust badges, but the cp interferes with salicylate tests. Your fish doesn’t seem to badly affected.

For active protozoan infections, you need to get copper levels up to full ASAP. This slowly raising copper stems from the old copper/citric acid formulations. Those had to be dosed and retested to get the copper up without overshooting the mark. For some reason, that got over-extrapolated to organically bound coppers. If you know how exact water volume, you can just add a full dose. If you are unsure, better to add half a dose, then the second half a few hours later.
Jay

Thanks for the quick response!

So you suggest we do a good water change and add the rest of the copper power dosage to get it to 2.5 tonight?

We had extra ammonia badges and I did use two just to verify...left the newer one in.

 

[gunflintcamper]

Update...50% water change and he’s doing way better!!!

Also I no longer trust ammonia badges either.

 

[NaturalGothic]

Is it possible he was flashing a lot? Sometimes fish will get pink/red bloches like a bruise if they’re dropped or scratch themselves hard enough.

 

[gunflintcamper]

Is it possible he was flashing a lot? Sometimes fish will get pink/red bloches like a bruise if they’re dropped or scratch themselves hard enough.

He never flashed at all...

Still looks good today. Will change water every other day I guess. Hopefully it goes ok.