The situation:
I recently began adding fish to my 100 gallon aquarium. It has been cycling for 5 months with just live rock and the occasional flakes of fish food i dump in to keep the cycle going. The first two fish were juvenile ocellaris clowns (Amphiprion ocellaris, tank bred). They are doing just fine.
However, I next purchased a yellow tang (Zebrasoma flavescens). It was eating at the store, in good health, and had been in the LFS for about a month before i purchased it. I drip acclimated the fish for just over an hour and added him to the tank. I also turned off the display tank lights for the day to help reduce stress. This fish died in 10 hours.
I took the fish back to the LFS, which happens to be a great place, and they performed a necropsy on the tang. The verdict from the store owner was that it died of an "internal bacterial infection." So, they hooked me up with another yellow tang. Like the first, it was healthy and eating in the store.
I performed the same type of acclimation for this new tang. When i added it, the fish swam around for a few days but i never saw it eat in my tank. There is lots of macro algae (red ogo, calipura, and bryopsis (unfortunately)) and i even added a piece of nori to coax it out. The clowns munched on the nori sheet no problem.
After a week this tang died too. Just before it did, i noticed it looked like it was starving: sunken stomach with visible ribs. A necropsy could not be performed on this fish, however.
Any ideas as to what might be causing this? I have not purchased any other fish at this time, i want to try and at least have some clue what might be going on. The clowns are still doing just fine.
Water parameters:
temp: 81 F
pH: 8.3
Alk: 10 kh
salinity: 35 ppt
Calcium: 320 ppm
Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate: undetectable
calcium is low but i don't see how that would hurt a tang.
I know these fish are wild caught and i hate the thought of taking them from an area where they were doing just fine, only to kill them in my tank.
I recently began adding fish to my 100 gallon aquarium. It has been cycling for 5 months with just live rock and the occasional flakes of fish food i dump in to keep the cycle going. The first two fish were juvenile ocellaris clowns (Amphiprion ocellaris, tank bred). They are doing just fine.
However, I next purchased a yellow tang (Zebrasoma flavescens). It was eating at the store, in good health, and had been in the LFS for about a month before i purchased it. I drip acclimated the fish for just over an hour and added him to the tank. I also turned off the display tank lights for the day to help reduce stress. This fish died in 10 hours.
I took the fish back to the LFS, which happens to be a great place, and they performed a necropsy on the tang. The verdict from the store owner was that it died of an "internal bacterial infection." So, they hooked me up with another yellow tang. Like the first, it was healthy and eating in the store.
I performed the same type of acclimation for this new tang. When i added it, the fish swam around for a few days but i never saw it eat in my tank. There is lots of macro algae (red ogo, calipura, and bryopsis (unfortunately)) and i even added a piece of nori to coax it out. The clowns munched on the nori sheet no problem.
After a week this tang died too. Just before it did, i noticed it looked like it was starving: sunken stomach with visible ribs. A necropsy could not be performed on this fish, however.
Any ideas as to what might be causing this? I have not purchased any other fish at this time, i want to try and at least have some clue what might be going on. The clowns are still doing just fine.
Water parameters:
temp: 81 F
pH: 8.3
Alk: 10 kh
salinity: 35 ppt
Calcium: 320 ppm
Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate: undetectable
calcium is low but i don't see how that would hurt a tang.
I know these fish are wild caught and i hate the thought of taking them from an area where they were doing just fine, only to kill them in my tank.
