sailfin tang in acute stress

[claytontong]

I bought a sailfin last week and he's been in QT for that week. was swimming around fine yesterday, shy as usual, but no oddities; eating lightly. this morning was at bottom of tank laying on side, with very rapid breathing (gill slits constantly flapping). allowed me to get my hand underneath the fish and move to a different part of the tank without struggling / flipping tail. no discoloration or other visible indicators. immediately checked water parameters - all good - no ammonia, no nitrite, nitrate < 0.1, no phosphate, 77 degrees, 8.2 ph, alk good, salinity 1.025. I moved a powerhead around to agitate the surface water better. system is 35g spread over two tanks, 2 other fish in system - one blue hippo in same tank, half the size of the sailfin, other is 3" powder brown tang in second (linked - same water) tank. both of the other fish are not showing any kinds of stress. any thoughts on what to do here?

 

[Amazon4]

Looks like you've got the bases covered.

3 tangs housed in 35g total volume may be your problem right there. They need highly oxygenated water. Do you have a way to airate the water? (airstone or something)

One thing to do is to run carbon in case a contaminate got in there. You'd expect to see the others react, too. But it doesn' t hurt to run carbon to eliminate the possibility.

Then there's alawys the trusty water change. Other than that, I can't think of anything to try.

Best of luck

 

[claytontong]

thanks amazon. already running carbon. will setup a spare protein skimmer tonight to try and help with oxygenation. and do a water change for the heck of it. the fish sizes are - ailing sailfin - 2", pbt - 3", hippo - 1"; was thinking if it was an oxygen problem the big pbt would be the first to display signs. don't know - still grasping for anything right now....

 

[Amazon4]

The sad thing is that some times we just never know what the cause was. I hope your efforts pay off - it's so frustrating going through it.

 

[claytontong]

bummer - the sailfin died yesterday afternoon before I could do any of the previous mentioned actions. after examining the body, I could find no oddities - like amazon said, a mystery.