Mysterious Death ~ Naso Tang

[Sharpie_]

Yesterday at around noon I came home to find my 5" Naso tang wedged between a large rock and the glass of my tank. It was dead and I was baffled. I have now had the fish for a little over a month and was enjoying it in my tank, it was however a shy fish. I was not QT'd because it was my tanks first addition and showed no signs of disease. About a week after his introduction she developed a fungus on a single fin which lasted a total of three days. She showed no other signs of disease from that point on. The fish always had a full stomach as I have a grazing rock covered in (macro)algaes in my DT.

After removing the dead fish from the tank I noted a strange discoloration on it's sides and proceeded to closely inspect the fish. There were no signs of damage to the fish and it appeared disease free (the white spec you will see in the image is an acrylic shaving). I also noted that the fish had just died as the fish still had it's eye's intact, I keep many hermits and when cleaning the eyes last no more then an hour or so after death of a fish.

 

[Sharpie_]

Any ideas as to COD? Treatment for other livestock exposed?

 

[JHemdal]

I wonder - did you see the fish eat prepared foods, was it doing so with gusto? Just because it had grazing rock available, if you didn't see it eat, it may not have been - especially since in captivity, Naso often go after normal aquarium fare as opposed to grazing.

The discoloration made me start thinking about some sort of sepsis in its abdomen (like from a de-gassing needle when it was collected) except that Naso have kind of weird skin, so it may have just discolored like that before you found it.

Jay

 

[gweston]

I had a 7 year old female clown die a number of weeks back. My best diagnosis was that an internal intestinal parasitic infection (which I cured with Prazi-pro) developed further into a secondary bacterial infection which got to the swim bladder. I then treated with Maracyn-2 unsuccessfully. She had similar 'white' skin coloration where before I saw tell-tale signs of infection (red/pink lines below the skin).

Not sure if this is exactly the same in your case, but if I'd have to throw a guess out... I'd figure it was an internal infection that did the Naso in. How it got it, not sure.

 

[Sharpie_]

Thanks for the noting, I inspected it thoroughly after removal and the only thing I could think of were stress colorings coming out. Hemdal, I had seen it eating frozen Mysis as well as cyclop-eez and grazing.

I just hope it was an isolated case and not bacterial/infectious. Thanks for the help guys.