Ich and Popped Eye in Hippo Tang. Going on vaca in 1 week. Help!

It was quite the challenge tonight to catch the hippo tang, but after hours of trying, all of a sudden we had him and put him into a hospital tank.


I got this tang a couple of weeks ago from another GIRS member, and he had it for a while. The hippo has been eating well, but after about a day in the tank I noticed ich on it. It was only evident in certain light, so it was no wonder that I missed it right away. I figured that it was from the stress of re-homing, even though it wasn't getting harassed by anyone in my 120gallon tank.


I was going to put it into a hospital tank back then, but we had the 4th of July holiday just a few days later and we were going out of town, plus a remember a speaker at the 2012 Fall Fest talking about QT, hospital tanks, and fish. He said that all fish have parasites in the ocean and as long as they are healthy, they can fight the parasites, and since this hippo was nice and plump and eating like a pig, I didn't put him into QT like I did all of my other fish prior to that day (I bought a purple tang from the same guy on the same day).


Fast forward to today yesterday and my wife even asked if it had ich. Then today, it was getting harassed a little by the purple tang even though they generally swim together fine. It was at that point that we noticed that it had a popped eye. I had a coral beauty that had a popped eye from an injury and the advice I got was that it would eventually go away on its own (which it did), but when the fish is already fighting ich, I was concerned.


So into the hospital tank it went tonight. Now the next problem is that a week from now we are going on vacation for 2 weeks. We have someone coming in every 3 days to take care of the cat and birds, and to do a quick check of the tank and just like last year I am going to set up a web cam that I can check on the tank every day. We have an autofeeder that has been working great, and the ATO will be loaded with 20 gallons of water, but I certainly can't expect a non-fish person to babysit a fish in a volitile hospital tank.


So I dosed the tank with Cupramine tonight, but is it even worth it? I mean ich can take over 3 weeks to "hatch" and die.


Any other tips to get the fish as healthy as possible in a week? Water quality will be checked at least twice a day and I will do my normal (lots of work) QT type maintenance. Cupramine says not to use other meds with it, but I've heard some people combining things. Not sure if there is anything that people have had success with for speeding up the popped eye healing that would work with Cupramine.


The real frustrating part is that my (and my wife's) favorite fish, an Auriga Butterflyfish, is now visiting the cleaner shrimp "station" often, flashing, and rubbing on rocks... Grrrr...

 

I might have to do that. I am still concerned about what to do with this guy's ich with my vacation coming up in a week. Cupramine or any ich treatment says that it needs 3 or more weeks to work. Looking back, I should have just put him in QT right away, but the guy I got him from had him, the purple tang, and an anthius in a salt bucket waiting for me when I got there. It was hard to examine him and I was lead to believe that he was healthy.

Now that I have a twitching and scratching butterflfish in my main tank, I may already be screwed, and I don't know if putting the hippo back in after 1 week of treatment would be a good idea or not, but I have nobody to take care of him while I am gone either.

 

Wow. You guys are great. Unfortunately I don't think that it will matter. I don't think that he will survive much longer. Both eyes are popped now (did the freshwater dip too) and he just lays on the bottom, barely breathing. Water quality, outside of the Cupramine, has been perfect. I was supposed to put in the second dose tonight, but I think that might be be the final straw for him if I do that. I have been thinking about putting just untreated water in and getting rid of all medicated water to see if I can at least bring him back a little, but the ich isn't good either.
It is so tough to know which way to go. The ich will get him or the medicine it seems at this point.