Multiple Tang Deaths

[schippy]

I have a 55 gal soon to start being a reef but currently FOWLR. Currently stocked with 2 clowns, 2 chromids, royal gramma, bangi cardinal, cleaner shrimp, fire golby, sand sifting golby, neon golby, blue eye cardinal, and black widow blenny. I wanted to finish off with a few tangs and then start adding the corals. I started with a yellow eye Kole. Did great. Eating, swimming and then one day found dead. Then I added a yellow and same thing looked fine eating and swimming and then dead. each only lasted a few weeks. Ni obvious diseases or issues. Other fish are totally fine. Feed mysis shrimp as well as algea pellets. Nitrates are high but rest of parameters are stable. Anything specific to the tangs that could explain this???

Thanks

 

[dweber618]

I counted 11 fish you have in the tank already, I would strongly advise against adding even one tang, let along 3. 55 gallons is too small for any tang.

As to why they are dying, it's hard to say- how old is your tank? I would suspect ich as tangs are very susceptible to it, but without pictures and more info on your tanks parameters it's hard to know for sure.

 

[scooter31707]

I agree with the above statement!! Also, Tangs required high oxygen levels. With that heavy bio-load in that they size tank, I would imagine that it is depleting oxygen. What type of flow do you have and are you using a skimmer? They could be stressing out due to the size of the tank.

 

[ThRoewer]

250 gallon is the minimum tank size for any Acanthus tang.
A 180 gallon with a 6 ft length may work (for a while) if the tangs are smaller species or still juveniles.
But 55 gallon is absolutely insufficient for hyperactive swimmers like tangs.

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[Taahirs]

Yes. Agree with akk the above.

 

[tanked_life]

Ok guys pm him your concerns about tangs being in the the 55 but for now we need to discuss why they are dying. Do you quarantine your fish?

 

[Capiross1]

I agree that its probably due to the size of the tank I currently have a 93 gallon cube it's been set up for approximately 2 years, I had a 144 gallon half circle with a yellow tang and a scopis tang they were in the 144 for about 8 years doing great now two years in the 93 there health has greatly decline nothing has changed other then the size of the tank the scopis has maybe 1/4 of its durso fin left and the yellow has probably 2/3 and they both have hole in head disease it's a shame I recently removed some rock and upped the flow in the tank so I'm hopping they'll be able to have more swimming area, if not I'm gonna try and give them away, I'm also in the process of setting up a bigger refugium and might try some miracle mud in there I heard that it can help with hole in head .


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[tanked_life]

Earth to TANG POLICE! The tangs aren't dying right off the bat because of the size of the tank. I mean I have a 3.5" yellow in my 55g right now and hes happy! (don't worry im upgrading to a 260 soon) but regardless, these tangs are dying for some other reason and before the rest of his fish die in the same fashion we should help him figure out what it is that's causing a fish massacre.

 

[Capiross1]

Earth to TANG POLICE! The tangs aren't dying right off the bat because of the size of the tank. I mean I have a 3.5" yellow in my 55g right now and hes happy! (don't worry im upgrading to a 260 soon) but regardless, these tangs are dying for some other reason and before the rest of his fish die in the same fashion we should help him figure out what it is that's causing a fish massacre.

Ah I'm gonna say all his other fish are fine and that the stress from being in to small of a tank is the cause, stress is a powerful thing IMO and tangs defiantly stress out a lot worse then most others


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[Capiross1]

I just thought of one other thing I have read that tangs are very sensitive to carbon it gets in there lungs and does something, I know Mike Palletta doesn't rinse his carbon at all but I just thought I'd throw that out there, I still believe it's stress from the size of the tank


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[jbvdhp]

Ok guys pm him your concerns about tangs being in the the 55 but for now we need to discuss why they are dying. Do you quarantine your fish?

LOL. "PM him your concerns regarding the tangs"? Yeah right. This is RC!!! [emoji23][emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]


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[jbvdhp]

I just thought of one other thing I have read that tangs are very sensitive to carbon it gets in there lungs and does something, I know Mike Palletta doesn't rinse his carbon at all but I just thought I'd throw that out there, I still believe it's stress from the size of the tank


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I run carbon 24/7 and my tangs have no issue or HLLE. Not relevant to OPs problem though


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[Capiross1]

I run carbon 24/7 and my tangs have no issue or HLLE. Not relevant to OPs problem though


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Yea I was throwing that out there but it could have had relevance.


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[hairalgae85]

Ah I'm gonna say all his other fish are fine and that the stress from being in to small of a tank is the cause, stress is a powerful thing IMO and tangs defiantly stress out a lot worse then most others


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Dead wrong. Tell that to wholesaler facilities, local fish stores etc. How do they manage to keep tangs in basically 20 gallon tanks for months on end?

We all know tangs need bigger tanks, and everyone wants to echo that sentiment to others, but that's not why there dying. San Diego zoo might tell you your 260 is too small for yours, you need one in the 10k gallon range.

I will say, having conversed with several importers recently, a lot of tangs are coming in awful. Naso, powder blues, Atlantic blues etc, are coming into to the states emaciated, and sometimss too far gone to recover. I know a handful of lfs that are intentionally not bringing in tangs except for a few .

 

[sde1500]

Probably didn't QT but that seems quick to kill the tang and nothing else. Could be stress and poor health. We've all had, or most have had, a fish or two die soon after starting QT. The fish is caught, who knows how it's handled by its captors, shipped halfway around the world, put in an LFS tanks, netted, bagged and put in your tank. That's a lot on a fish.

And I think addressing the size issue is perfectly fine. The OP said a few tangs. To me that's 3 or 4. Which is then good to address that, because that is 3 or 4 too many. To say that maybe it's because of lack of QT doesn't help if he then QTs 3 in a little tank and into the DT they go.

 

[ThRoewer]

Well, the tangs are the only fish dying. All the other, smaller fish seem to be doing fine (based on the provided information). Also, he reports that there are no signs of disease (other than dead tangs).
So stress is definitely a possible cause.

Another cause could be that one of the smaller fish is seeing the tangs as competition and attacks them (the blenny would be the one I would look closer at). Though you generally would see some bite marks.

Ich would show, and velvet, brook and even uronema would be more equal opportunity killers and also affect some of the smaller fish.
So these can be excluded.

Pretty much all other diseases would show some symptoms and lead to a decline over time, but rarely to sudden death without some prior warning.

Since these fish come from Hawai'i cyanide can be excluded as well.

So what else is left other than a heart attack due to constant stress?

I run carbon 24/7 and my tangs have no issue or HLLE. ...

Not all carbon is equal. If you use high quality pelleted carbon, wash it well and make sure it can't tumble in the flow to cause abrasion, you should be fine.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

I have a 55 gal soon to start being a reef but currently FOWLR. Currently stocked with 2 clowns, 2 chromids, royal gramma, bangi cardinal, cleaner shrimp, fire golby, sand sifting golby, neon golby, blue eye cardinal, and black widow blenny. I wanted to finish off with a few tangs and then start adding the corals. I started with a yellow eye Kole. Did great. Eating, swimming and then one day found dead. Then I added a yellow and same thing looked fine eating and swimming and then dead. each only lasted a few weeks. Ni obvious diseases or issues. Other fish are totally fine. Feed mysis shrimp as well as algea pellets. Nitrates are high but rest of parameters are stable. Anything specific to the tangs that could explain this???

Thanks

With no signs of disease, I would suspect either improper handling of the fish from capture until you get it or one of your fish is harassing the newcomer when you don't see it and the fish dies before recovering from capture and transport (or both). If it is just two fish, you don't really have a pattern. You have so many fish in the tank that the tang, already showing up stressed from capture, transport and not eating for a week or two, is continually stressed in your tank and never has a chance to recover. The other fish are fine because they are heartier and are over their initial stress period.

Also make sure you have no ammonia or nitrites. That means zero, and not just a little bit of color in the test.

I wouldn't add another fish to your tank. Wait until you get a bigger tank. If you insist on doing it anyway, I would quarantine a kole or another bristletooth tang for 6 weeks, letting it get used to aquarium life and build up its immune system before introduction to the other fish (when you are sure it is healthy).

Your pattern also looks somewhat like capture by cyanide or other poisoning, where a fish comes in acting normal, eats, and then one day shows up dead. That isn't likely if the yellow came from Hawaii.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Earth to TANG POLICE! The tangs aren't dying right off the bat because of the size of the tank. I mean I have a 3.5" yellow in my 55g right now and hes happy! (don't worry im upgrading to a 260 soon) but regardless, these tangs are dying for some other reason and before the rest of his fish die in the same fashion we should help him figure out what it is that's causing a fish massacre.

I agree with this and the others who said tank size alone isn't the cause. As many have said, it is likely the stress of too many fish crammed into too small of a tank while the tang has been introduced while too weak to compete and recover.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

250 gallon is the minimum tank size for any Acanthus tang.
A 180 gallon with a 6 ft length may work (for a while) if the tangs are smaller species or still juveniles.
But 55 gallon is absolutely insufficient for hyperactive swimmers like tangs.

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I agree that a 55 is insufficient, but Live Aquaria (whose recommendations are generally considered reasonable) recommends a 125 for most acanthurus tangs they sell and a 180 for some. A 250 is nice but not really necessary.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Also, Tangs required high oxygen levels. With that heavy bio-load in that they size tank, I would imagine that it is depleting oxygen. What type of flow do you have and are you using a skimmer? They could be stressing out due to the size of the tank.

I agree with this as well. You need plenty of flow in your tank for a tang (a couple of good powerheads and not just overflow from a sump) and some sort of aeration, which is typically provided by a skimmer. If you don't use a skimmer, you could try an air stone although you will end up with salt creep.

At any rate, there are 3-4 common themes here that likely combine to have caused your tang deaths.