Orange Shoulder Tang - What is it doing?

[Tom39]

So my orange shoulder Tang is acting odd. It keeps coming to the surface and gulping air and pushing it out through it's gills. Is this a indication of some sort of ailment?
There are no visible signs of infection. No dots or specs or flakes of any kind on his skin. He eats well, swims around the tank like normal, doesn't scratch on anything and shows no signs that anything is wrong. All of the other fish show none of these symptoms.
I tried to upload a short video with Tapatalk but the download failed. The best I could do was the picture, showing the bubbles that he's sucking in and pushing out.

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[Eliemination]

Maybe there is not enough oxygen in your tank? Fish would usually do this when oxygen levels are low. may I see what your tank looks like and also your setup?

 

[Dmorty217]

Point the return line at the surface of the water and a pwoerhead or two. Looks like lack of O2 to me

 

[rvareef]

How old/big is the tank? is the OS the biggest fish in the tank? Are you running a sandbed? Did you move anything around in the tank or add anything new? My orange shoulder likes to burrow in the sand near the rocks, and will move corals on the sanbed stirring it up, so maybe ammonia spike?

 

[nsfishguy]

My orange shoulder has been doing this for several years as well. I think it entertains them. My other fish are fine and there are no other issues. I wouldn't worry about it to much unless you see some other problems.

 

[Tom39]

Maybe there is not enough oxygen in your tank? Fish would usually do this when oxygen levels are low. may I see what your tank looks like and also your setup?

The tank us fairly new, right at about 6 months.
150g cube, 40g sump and an external skimmer.

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[Tom39]

Point the return line at the surface of the water and a pwoerhead or two. Looks like lack of O2 to me

Return is pointed and discharges right at the surface. It looked to me that it provides lots of agitation but maybe it is not enough.
Pic is a view looking up at the water surface.
Unfortunately I am unable to direct a powerhead at the surface as I am running MP40's and they are unidirectional.

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[Tom39]

How old/big is the tank? is the OS the biggest fish in the tank? Are you running a sandbed? Did you move anything around in the tank or add anything new? My orange shoulder likes to burrow in the sand near the rocks, and will move corals on the sanbed stirring it up, so maybe ammonia spike?

The tank is quite new at about 6 months. It cycled for 5 months and the fish have been in it for 1 month.
I would not say that the OS is the largest fish as there is a Yellow tang in there that is about the same size.
I am running a sandbed but I haven't moved anything in the tank, I haven't added anything and I have not seen my OS burrow. That would be cool to see if he did though. You should post a video of that, I would love to see that.
The 1st thing that I checked was ammonia and both test kits show nothing. I have a bit of nitrates but that is it.

 

[Tom39]

My orange shoulder has been doing this for several years as well. I think it entertains them. My other fish are fine and there are no other issues. I wouldn't worry about it to much unless you see some other problems.

I am hoping that this is the case. :thumbsup:

 

[Moort82]

I've heard people suggest when other tangs did this that they were eating the protein film you sometimes find on the surface.

 

[scooter31707]

I've heard people suggest when other tangs did this that they were eating the protein film you sometimes find on the surface.

I think this may be the case. All 5 of my tangs do this every now and then (not often). I don't notice any other fish doing this. So I eliminated lack of oxygen.

 

[Tom39]

I've heard people suggest when other tangs did this that they were eating the protein film you sometimes find on the surface.

That makes a lot of sense.

 

[McPuff]

My lieutenant tang does this as does the foxface. I used to have rabbit fish that did this in addition to other tangs. I think it's just something to do, possibly there is some type of benefit to them. The behavior was always in the same location. Would say there is nothing wrong with your O2 and that it is just a silly quirk of these fishes.

 

[Dmorty217]

Return is pointed and discharges right at the surface. It looked to me that it provides lots of agitation but maybe it is not enough.
Pic is a view looking up at the water surface.
Unfortunately I am unable to direct a powerhead at the surface as I am running MP40's and they are unidirectional.

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You could try moving the MP40 higher up in the tank to provide more agitation. The fish appears to be very healthy so I'm not sure I would worry too much about it. I had a Orange shoulder years ago in my 220g but it never did that.

 

[borg]

The OS is a very busy tang in my experience always moving around pecking at anything it can find to shovel down the mouth perhaps its part of the character for this one , thats a nice clean setup you have their looks great but there isnt much of any algae i could see after 6 months you should have all types perhaps the photoperoid is the issue ?

 

[Tom39]

The OS is a very busy tang in my experience always moving around pecking at anything it can find to shovel down the mouth perhaps its part of the character for this one , thats a nice clean setup you have their looks great but there isnt much of any algae i could see after 6 months you should have all types perhaps the photoperoid is the issue ?

You are right about no algae in the tank and it being a result of a lacking photo-period. There actually isn't a speck of algae anywhere in the tank. This is a direct result of while I was cycling the tank, I seen no valid reason for having any lights on, so without light there was really no opportunity for algae to grow.

After cycling and I put the fish in, I again seen no reason for lights and had not turned them on.

I actually just turned the lights on a few days ago but by the end of the week I will also be installing my algae turf scrubber. My plan is that the algae turf scrubber should out-compete the reef lights and my hope is that I will never have algae in my DT.

Because of no algae growth in the DT and nothing for the fish to pick at, I have been feeding nori 2x a day and I also feed the fish a variety of foods such as LRS Herbivore Frenzy, mysis and brine shrimp.