everything I read leads me to believe that these will get ich as soon as I drop one in my tank. Is it really that bad? I'd love to have one in my tank, but removing all my fish and letting my tank go fallow is a P.I.T.A!
quarantine all fish that go in the tank. No ich ever introduced to the tank = no ich ever.
Hippos (and most all tangs)do have a nack for getting ich more readily than most I believe due to them getting easily stressed over improper tank conditions, lack of swimming room (hippos get large and need a 6' or bigger tank when they are adults) tankmates that are hostile towards the hippo ect..
I would definatley QT any tang for at least 4 weeks preferably in a 20 gallon or larger tank with some fake plants or something in there to hide behind.
Just about all fish tanks have ich in them. It's something that the fish just deal with. Most fish have built up an immunity to it and are unaffected, however fish under stress - including new fish - will be more susceptible to ich than others.
If you think about it, the fish go from one holding tank to another on their way from the ocean/breeding pond to your home. At some point in those travels the fish will come in contact with ich.
That's not to say that quarantining fish isn't good. It is. I don't just because I haven't gotten to that point yet, but having just lost four fish to ich I've done a lot of studying up on it. These were all new fish; the older fish were unaffected. I also had been lax in my water changes - something I do religiously after that catastrophe.
So the combination of a lack of water change and the stress of a new tank led to my outbreak. The bad water quality added to the fishes stress while the other fish had probably adjusted to it already.