What happened to my tang?

[miztic]

Hi,
We have a purple tang in hypo together with a potters angel and two percula clowns.
equipment: 20 Gallon long tank, maxi jet 1200, magnum HOB filter, and a pile of PVC bits.
My wife noticed this white spot on him this morning, and he's not using the fin on that side, any idea what happened to him? anything we can do for him?

he appears to be breathing a little fast, definately faster then the others in the tank.
Could it be lack of oxygen ? salinity got too low? (its 1.009 with the refractometer)
the Ph accidentally got up to 8.6 on sunday, its back down to 8.2 at the moment, could that have done it?

any input is appreciated..

 

[goby1]

Is it possible that the fish had a parasite and that the stress of 1.009 allowed that parasite to gaina foothold (finhold)? Is this a quarantine for a new fish? I thought FW dip was only supposed to be for a few minutes....

G1

 

[Craig Lambert]

Are you saying you have that fish in a 20GL? Or is it in the 90G that is in your signature? Your SG is way low. Should be 1.025-1.026. Hard to tell from the pic about the white spots. White spots usually indicate ich. Can you post a couple of other pics?

 

[miztic]

the tang came down with ich after being in the 90 for about a week, I should have QT'ed all fish from the start, but hey, I was with the 'it can't happen to me, my LFS know what they're doing' group.
anyway, in order to eradicate the ich all 4 fish were transferred from the 90 to the 20 for hyposalinity treatment, they've been in the 20 for 17 days now, about 14 of those at 1.009 sg.

 

[outta names]

If you salinity is 1.009 than that could really be a problem IMO. I keep mine around 1.024. Also is your whole system 20 gallons? That could also cause problems, tangs like lots of swimming room and are very territorial just my 2 cents.

 

[miztic]

sorry, but there's no way i can set up a 90 gallon QT tank, he'll be fine in the 20 for the 8 week treatment duration.
secondly, to effectively treat ich we chose the hypo salinity treatment method, that means lowering the salinity from my regular 1.026 down to 1.009 and leaving it there for 4 weeks, that effectively kills the ich.
common guys, you know what hypo treatment is right?

 

[davidcalgary29]

I'd check pH paramaters in your 20g and make sure that you're not ODing on the copper (if you're using it). I had a lovely clown surgeonfish die on me in hypo QT when I failed to ensure/maintain a suitable pH range, and it displayed just this type of patch fading/discoloration, too. None of my other fish in QT experienced any signs of physical discomfort during my treatment regime, so perhaps tangs and surgeonfish are especially sensitive to pH fluctuations.

 

[1SickReefer]

boy some of the reply's here are awful, please, all that posted please reread the first post, this a 20 QT not a display,

GEEZ He is using HYPO to attempt to cure the ICK.

He has this large round white spot on his belly that does not apear to be ICK.

Now the question is, what is it?

 

[1SickReefer]

Nor did he ask if his 20 would be OK for his tang.

 

[miztic]

sorry about your loss, I saw a clown surgeon in the store this weekend, they are beautiful.
we're using a reef fanatic ph monitor, so we can monitor the ph continuously, its a big help, we're not using copper because I read it would hurt the tang's digestive tract.
A little snafu with the buffers this weekend (bottle says you can't OD, yeah right) made the ph go up to 8.6 on sunday, its already back down to 8.2, hopefully he'll recover. my wife told me a few times to check the change water before using it, one of these days I'll learn to listen the first time.

thanks,
miztic

 

[1SickReefer]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6632712#post6632712 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by davidcalgary29
I'd check pH paramaters in your 20g and make sure that you're not ODing on the copper (if you're using it). I had a lovely clown surgeonfish die on me in hypo QT when I failed to ensure/maintain a suitable pH range, and it displayed just this type of patch fading/discoloration, too. None of my other fish in QT experienced any signs of physical discomfort during my treatment regime, so perhaps tangs and surgeonfish are especially sensitive to pH fluctuations.

Now this is a good suggestion. you must have actually read the FIRST post LOL

 

[demeyer2]

Give the other people a break, no where does it say in his first post this is a QT tank, and some people might not know what hypo is and just assume that its a irresponsible reefkeeper keeping tangs in a 20. Of course that is not the case and its an advanced reefkeeper, but those other people are just trying to help.
Back to the topic, hopefully your tang makes a full recovery and I've never heard of ich beating hypo, so your fish should be disease free in the end. Good luck!

 

[miztic]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6632900#post6632900 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by demeyer2
Give the other people a break, no where does it say in his first post this is a QT tank, and some people might not know what hypo is and just assume that its a irresponsible reefkeeper keeping tangs in a 20. Of course that is not the case and its an advanced reefkeeper, but those other people are just trying to help.
Back to the topic, hopefully your tang makes a full recovery and I've never heard of ich beating hypo, so your fish should be disease free in the end. Good luck!

yeah i should have said QT in there, I guess it was implied by the hypo

I'd go with intermediate, not advanced

thanks!

 

[Craig Lambert]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6632900#post6632900 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by demeyer2
Give the other people a break, no where does it say in his first post this is a QT tank, and some people might not know what hypo is and just assume that its a irresponsible reefkeeper keeping tangs in a 20. Of course that is not the case and its an advanced reefkeeper, but those other people are just trying to help.
Back to the topic, hopefully your tang makes a full recovery and I've never heard of ich beating hypo, so your fish should be disease free in the end. Good luck!

Thank you. There was no indication that this fish was in a QT.

 

[MyMonkey]

I have heard of stress causing some tangs skin to slough off. Could be caused by the PH jump etc... Any amonia building up in the 20?

 

[Wiskey]

Check for ammonia, and nitrite, I had a problem in my Q tank once and realised it was because I did not let the Q tank cycle quite long enough.

Whiskey

 

[miztic]

ammonia is 0, we never let the nitrite get above 0.25ppm, we're doing 50% water changes and treating with amquell+ (supposed to detoxify ammonia and nitrites) works well according to the test kits.

we had the magnum HOB filter on the sump of the 90 for a week before setting up the 20, didn't appear to make much difference.

edit: we also had all the pvc bits (mentioned in the first post, clue that it was a QT tank ) in the 90's sump for a few days.