Due to the popularity of the Finding Nemo and Finding Dori movies, the various species of blue tang are very popular within the fish keeping community with many people who keep marine tanks often adding one to their tank.
Due to the fragile nature of tangs, we do often see people reaching out and asking questions about treating a blue hippo tang with ich so we have decided to publish this article on the topic to help our readers.
Blue hippo tang can be more susceptible to ich with the parasite often being more difficult to treat in blue hippo tang due to the types of tank that the fish are kept in.
You can try to treat the ich by increasing the water temperature or integrating some type of garlic infused fish food to take advantage of the natural anti-parasitic properties of garlic to try and treat the ich outbreak on your fish.
As we covered in our article on treating ich on a yellow tang though, it can be difficult to use a chemical based ich treatment when looking to treat any species of tang for ich as they are commonly kept in tanks with sensitive corals and anemones that don’t do well with chemicals in their water.
This restricts you to the less effective treatments for ich but our article going over what to do if your ich treatment is not working may be able to help you if you don’t see results from your treatment of choice.
Are Blue Hippo Tang Prone To Ich?
Blue hippo tang can be more prone to ich breakouts than other fish species as their natural herbivorous diets offer minimal natural protection against parasitic infections allowing ich to take hold of the fish quickly.
Thankfully though, there are plenty of garlic infused fish flake products on the market these days as well as nori sheets that blue hippo tang will also eat that both have anti-parasitic properties.
This is why many people who keep any species of tang in their tanks will try to feed their fish garlic infused nori sheets as they compound the natural anti-parasitic properties of both garlic and nori seaweed into a single food source.
This can really help prevent and treat some ich strains that may affect your blue hippo tang and help to get your fish back to regular health as quickly as possible.
If you do just leave your blue hippo tang to eat the algae, detritus, and regular fish foods then it is definitely more susceptible to an ich breakout and with tang, prevention is definitely better than cure when it comes to ich.
This is why we would highly recommend that you look to get either a garlic infused fish flake (remember it has to be a herbivorous flake, not omnivorous) or some form of nori sheet product, ideally garlic infused nori sheets if possible to help protect your fish.
How To Treat A Blue Hippo Tang With Ich!
The best way to treat ich on a blue hippo tang is to try and include anti-parasitic foods in the diet of the fish while also increasing the temperature of the water as high as possible while keeping it within parameters for all tank mates.
This can treat most strains of ich on a blue hippo tang quickly provided that you catch it early enough but any ich that has been left to develop will be problematic.
Although coral banded shrimp seem to be one of the default recommendations for treating ich in marine tanks on social media right now, they really are not as effective as some people suggest.
Yes, a coral banded shrimp may physically pick the ich parasites off your hippo tang and eat them but this is usually not enough to totally deal with the infection.
On top of this, most tang will not sit there and let the coral banded shrimp pick all of the ich off them either so we usually recommend against getting a coral banded shrimp just to treat ich on a fish.
You also have to keep in mind that some ich strains can take higher temperatures than others so it can be problematic to treat ich with the temperature trick.
With hippo tang being a particularly nervous fish, trying to catch the fish to quarantine it for specialist treatment for its ich breakout can also end up causing more harm than it fixes.
If you don’t have any sensitive corals or anemones in your tank with your hippo tang in it then you can try a copper based ich treatment such as Seachem Cupramine Copper and although these do have a high chance of quickly treating ich, they can also cause some temporary side effects in your tang.
Can A Blue Hippo Tang Survive Ich?
Blue hippo tang can definitely survive ich if they are treat early enough and although some may still have life long scars from the ich breakout after treatment, the fish can otherwise make a full recovery.
The trick is to start your ich treatment plan as early as possible to give your hippo tang the best possible chance of making a full recovery.
We have actually seen some fish keepers sacrifice the corals and anemones in their tank to save their tang with ich breakouts due to the parasitic infection becoming so bad that a copper based ich treatment such as Seachem Cupramine Copper being the only option left.
Always stick to the recommended dosing instructions of the product on the label and never go over the recommended dosing in the hope of treating the ich quickly as this is highly likely to backfire with any species of tang.
Once you treat the ich breakout on your blue hippo tang, we would highly recommend that you do your best to integrate garlic infused nori sheets as a part of their overall diet as a preventive measure to reduce the chance of future ich breakouts in your fish taking hold.
Both garlic infused foods and nori seaweed have a great track record for reducing the susceptibility of your fish to ich and taking advantage of both methods in a single product can really help your tang.
Conclusion
That brings our article going over treating your blue hippo tang for ich to an end and we hope that you have found our article helpful. Although it can be far more difficult to treat an ich breakout in a marine tank than in a freshwater tank, it is still possible but the process is usually slower due to most people trying to avoid having to use chemical treatments that can effect any corals or anemones that they keep in their tank.
