Yellow tang help

[aprilschutt]

So I have a yellow tang that I just introduced to my display tank on Saturday. He went through five weeks of quarentine and seemed fine. Was eating good too. Now that he's been in my display tank for a few days he's acting very weird with his swimming, looks skinny and it looks like my clown fish have nipped at his tail and top fin a little bit What is wrong with my tang and what should I do? I'm uploading a video so you can see his behavior.

 

[username in use]

How large is the tank?

What are the water parameters?

How old is the tank?

Did you treat with anything in quarantine?

 

[fishchef]

Well, Sorry...75g is too small for a Yellow Tang. They like lots of room. We had a Purple in a 125 and he had 6 feet to dash in. The purple did get big and fat. Some would say that tank was too small. We had a Yellow in a similar sized tank...years ago before we found out and it suffered from lateral line and some fin deformities.

 

[aprilschutt]

75 gallon about 15 months old. I treated the tang with a week of prazipro followed by a 21 day dose of New Life Spectrum Ick Shield Powder.

Water parameters are all normal. zero for everything except about 5 for nitrates.

 

[aprilschutt]

Well I was told by many people before purchasing (as well as the fish store) that he would be ok going in a 75. He lived in a much smaller quarantine tank and showed none of this behavior. Could he have really developed "lateral line" in just three days? Seems a bit odd to me but I am newer at this!

I am really questioning it being figuring out space with the tang and my aggressive female clown. I did see her biting at his tail fin which is where the chunk came out from. I'm thinking of trying to catch my clown and quarantine her for a few days. Thoughts on that?

 

[fishchef]

Its not LL at this time, but it is caused by stress which comes from being confined or feeling so. Clowns are very territorial since they are damsels.

 

[aprilschutt]

Thanks for taking the time to respond fishchef.

 

[fishchef]

Anytime. We had a Kole Tang in a 55 for 7 plus years. It never showed any physical problems. It graduated to a 125 early 2000. Lost it this year. The Kole was very small, probably stunted its growth. You never know.

 

[GimpyFin]

Obviously, the bigger the tank the better for fish like tangs, but if you got a small to mid sized yellow tang, he should be fine in a 75, especially if it's not a crowded tank and he's added toward the end so he doesn't get too bully-ish. You said there was a video somewhere?

 

[username in use]

The fact it just went into a larger tank says the issues are not from the tank size. You said all levels are normal. What does that mean? What is the ph, sg, ammonia, nitrites exactly? How much rock is in there? Anything else change?

 

[anthonys51]

i noticed with tangs, (not saying i am a tang expert) but they seem to like hiding places, so they can dash in and out with plenty of swimming space to swim in too. so maybe you need more rocks.
. in the qt tank no one was around to harass the fish, but once you put it into an existing display tank with a clown, your tang could be super stressed from being harassed, lowing its resistant making it more susceptible to diseases
a lot of saltwater fish tend to be shy when first added to a new tank