Ok, I didn’t QT a new addition and there’s no sense in giving me “the talk” about QTing because no one can beat me up more than I am myself, lol.
My better half was out with our daughters and came home with a yellow tang Saturday night. Fish was acclimated and looked to be doing great this morning, but when I looked at it tonight as the lights were going off I saw a dozen or so white spots. I then IMMEDIATELY put him into a hospital tank.
My question isn’t about how to treat ich or anything like that, but what I’m curious about is how safe the DT might be or if it’s already contaminated and I’m just SOL.
What should my next steps be with respect to the DT??
Well this could end up being a long, drawn out controversial thread. So let me kick off the on-line boxing match.
Your tank is probably already infected. The only way to ensure your display tank is not infected (since you can’t medicate a DT) is to leave it set up and fallow (no fish) for something like 12 weeks.
Now with that being said, there is a school of thought that says, don’t beat up the better half for bringing home a sick fish, that your tank already had ich in it, that all tanks have ich in them. Some believe that tanks inherently have an ich parasite just by the nature of the hobby. Usually our fish are healthy enough and have a strong enough immune system to fight off the infection without any issues. It’s when adding new fish, the stress from being caught, transported, acclimated, and dumped in new tanks 2,3,4 times within a few days that stresses them enough to allow the ich to take hold.
Ich also isn’t always fatal - I’ve known a guy that had a tang with ich showing for MONTHS - no ill effects - and did not spread to other fish in the tank.