I bought a Powder Blue Tang on August 19th. It had no visible signs of disease (with one exception) and behaved in a healthy way (no scratching, no excessive hiding, it had a "normal" activity level, was eating extremely well). The fish was noticeably skinny, though (I didn't think much about this since it seems tangs are often underweight while at many LFSs)...though in retrospect, tangs aren't usually skinny at this particular LFS.
When I got the fish home I acclimated him and placed him in an 80 gallon QT with Cu. Eventually he also received prophylactic praziquantel and metronidazole (API General Cure). Every day that I had the fish it ate very well and seemed perfectly healthy.
On day 13 in QT he had a strange behavior right after beginning to eat (everything was normal up until the moment he began eating). Right after taking in a few pieces of food, he began to race very fast around the tank and zoom back and forth. This fish was generally quite mellow, didn't startle easily, and never had appeared this way.
On day 14 in QT something stranger occurred right after beginning to eat. The PBT began feeding enthusiastically as usual but then it absolutely froze, floated to the water surface with completely no movement or signs of life (I don't recall seeing gill movement but I could have just missed it). Basically, he looked like he died suddenly. The fish remained floating this way for about 5-8 seconds, then started twitching a bit, swam downward in a very uncoordinated way, began swimming in a very slow, twitchy/uncoordinated counter clockwise circle, finally fell to the bottom of the tank and laid there for a couple minutes looking severely distressed. The fish slowly came around after about 10 minutes. 1 hour later the fish is swimming around and seemed perfectly normal. The next morning he was dead.
He was fed the same thing every day in QT. NLS marine pellets soaked together with frozen PE mysis (they were soaked together in fresh artificial salt water. I do this to get my fish eating pellets, which he was. It wasn't a vitamin soak.).
Any idea what happened?
When I got the fish home I acclimated him and placed him in an 80 gallon QT with Cu. Eventually he also received prophylactic praziquantel and metronidazole (API General Cure). Every day that I had the fish it ate very well and seemed perfectly healthy.
On day 13 in QT he had a strange behavior right after beginning to eat (everything was normal up until the moment he began eating). Right after taking in a few pieces of food, he began to race very fast around the tank and zoom back and forth. This fish was generally quite mellow, didn't startle easily, and never had appeared this way.
On day 14 in QT something stranger occurred right after beginning to eat. The PBT began feeding enthusiastically as usual but then it absolutely froze, floated to the water surface with completely no movement or signs of life (I don't recall seeing gill movement but I could have just missed it). Basically, he looked like he died suddenly. The fish remained floating this way for about 5-8 seconds, then started twitching a bit, swam downward in a very uncoordinated way, began swimming in a very slow, twitchy/uncoordinated counter clockwise circle, finally fell to the bottom of the tank and laid there for a couple minutes looking severely distressed. The fish slowly came around after about 10 minutes. 1 hour later the fish is swimming around and seemed perfectly normal. The next morning he was dead.
He was fed the same thing every day in QT. NLS marine pellets soaked together with frozen PE mysis (they were soaked together in fresh artificial salt water. I do this to get my fish eating pellets, which he was. It wasn't a vitamin soak.).
Any idea what happened?
