Blonde Naso not eating

[Big G]

Here's some information and guidelines to help your fish from our own Humblefish:

Symptoms - Velvet dinospores will usually invade the gills first and sometimes kill the fish right then due to asphyxiation. If this happens, you may never see physical evidence of velvet on the skin & fins. Therefore, it is important to observe for these key behavioral symptoms of velvet:

• Reduced or complete loss of appetite.
• Heavy breathing, rubbing, flashing, head twitching, erratic swimming behavior (unfortunately velvet shares all these same symptoms with ich & gill flukes.)
• Swimming into the flow of a powerhead (unique to velvet).
• Acting reclusive (velvet causes fish to be sensitive to light).

If visible physical symptoms do manifest:

• Velvet may initially start out looking just like ich, with salt or sugar-like “sprinkles” visible mostly on the fins.
• Within days or sometimes just hours, these tiny white dots will spread all over the fish’s body, covering it in “dust.” This dust may look grey-gold colored if viewed at the right angle and under the right spectrum of light. For this reason, it may be difficult to see velvet on a yellow or light colored fish (look from an angle, not directly from the side). However, sometimes a fish’s body will look “dirty” or show “dark areas” just before velvet appears.
• There are two ways to differentiate velvet from ich:

1. Velvet trophonts (and the correlating dots) are much smaller than ich. They range in size from 10-80 micrometers in diameter. They are also perfectly round. Ich trophonts are more oval shaped and range in size from 48 x 27 to 452 x 360 micrometers. Both start off small but then grow in size before dropping off. It has been said that velvet makes a fish look like it has been dusted with a fine powder, whereas ich is more like salt grains.
2. If you can count the number of white dots on your fish, then you are probably dealing with ich. If they are too numerous to count, it is most likely velvet.

 

[USMC 4 LIFE]

It sounds as if something is suppressing his appetite as mentioned and unless he’s isolated for treatment, I’m afraid his condition isn’t going to get any better.

Best of luck

 

[Vincet81]

Did you check if he ate at the lfs? I’m asking this because my buddy picked up 3 blonde naso tangs in the last 5 months. All looked super healthy but wouldn’t eat. No signs of anything for a month then they just died out of nowhere. Other than not really eating they looked normal. Could be an issue that blonde naso tangs are having with suppliers.

 

[Daniel Waters]

For what it's worth, I purchased a blonde naso tang about two months ago, and he exhibited similar behavior to what you are describing. Mine had a few small white marks but we're definitely not ich or velvet. These just seemed to be normal discolorations that have gone away (rather they aren't noticeable during the day, but at night you can see some discoloration marks when he changes his base color when the lights go out). Your pictures seem similar to what I observed on my blonde naso.

As far as eating, my blonde naso also showed no interest in algae on clips or tied to rocks, but he did forage for algae on my live rocks. Also, my blonde naso would not accept pellets or frozen food or did so very, very sparingly. After a week or 10 days, he did start eating more frozen and did start taking algae from a clip. Fast forward to today, the tang eats like a pig! So I guess what I'm saying is all this could be very normal behavior. Changing environments can be stressful for fish and sometimes they just need time to adjust. I would not recommend quarantining him at this point as I believe you would just stress the fish more by moving him again (this is assuming you don't see other indications of infection or flukes or another fish (like another tang) stressing the fish further). I'd recommend continuing to add a variety of foods in small offerings several times a day. Maybe a bit of garlic added might help. I also noticed my blonde naso was more apt to eat smaller pieces of frozen food...he would ignore pieces he couldn't easily take into his mouth...now he is not that way, but that's how he was in the beginning. So maybe try small pieces of pe mysis and baby brine shrimp. Of course, nasos are mostly herbivores but I suspect he will begin taking algae sheets or nori in due time. Another option,if you are really concerned and you have access, is to try putting in some live rock heavily covered in algae for him to pick at until he starts taking prepared foods.

 

[Daniel Waters]

#chewytabacca

Any update on the blonde naso?

 

[4FordFamily]

Rubber banding nori to rocks, particularly red Nori, is often irresistible for tangs.

Live blackworms and live brine work well, live blackworms can be purchased online.

You’ll want a quarantine, LFS cannot do it properly and remain profitable, here’s an article explaining why:

https://www.reef2reef.com/ams/lfs-fish-“treatment”-the-“sudden”-need-for-quarantine.308/

 

[chewy tabacca]

Hey guys sorry for the delay I was working, I am a pilot and had to leave for a couple days. As I was on my way to the airport I took the fish back. I wasn't able to give him my undivided attention for the past couple days. They put it back in the tank with the other 4 NASO's. I did call last night and they said he was eating pellets and algae flakes. Because he was in with so many of my other fish he was a little nervous still. They said they would give me a even up exchange so I will pick it up on Tuesday hopefully. I didn't want to subject him to further stress and possible death if I could prevent it. So in conclusion I feel that I made the right move and he is going to be OK. I will throw up a picture of the new one and let you guys know how round 2 goes. Also they said the spots on him were stress spots from not eating, there was no disease on him which was also great news, apparently he is already losing them. They also do not use copper on their fish there. I will maybe grab a picture of him as well while I am there

 

[chewy tabacca]

For what it's worth, I purchased a blonde naso tang about two months ago, and he exhibited similar behavior to what you are describing. Mine had a few small white marks but we're definitely not ich or velvet. These just seemed to be normal discolorations that have gone away (rather they aren't noticeable during the day, but at night you can see some discoloration marks when he changes his base color when the lights go out). Your pictures seem similar to what I observed on my blonde naso.

As far as eating, my blonde naso also showed no interest in algae on clips or tied to rocks, but he did forage for algae on my live rocks. Also, my blonde naso would not accept pellets or frozen food or did so very, very sparingly. After a week or 10 days, he did start eating more frozen and did start taking algae from a clip. Fast forward to today, the tang eats like a pig! So I guess what I'm saying is all this could be very normal behavior. Changing environments can be stressful for fish and sometimes they just need time to adjust. I would not recommend quarantining him at this point as I believe you would just stress the fish more by moving him again (this is assuming you don't see other indications of infection or flukes or another fish (like another tang) stressing the fish further). I'd recommend continuing to add a variety of foods in small offerings several times a day. Maybe a bit of garlic added might help. I also noticed my blonde naso was more apt to eat smaller pieces of frozen food...he would ignore pieces he couldn't easily take into his mouth...now he is not that way, but that's how he was in the beginning. So maybe try small pieces of pe mysis and baby brine shrimp. Of course, nasos are mostly herbivores but I suspect he will begin taking algae sheets or nori in due time. Another option,if you are really concerned and you have access, is to try putting in some live rock heavily covered in algae for him to pick at until he starts taking prepared foods.

I like the idea of surrounding the rock in algae. I have a rock right on the top that is only about 3 inches big and would be easy to wrap the whole rock.

 

[chewy tabacca]

This will be the new one tomorrow I will try.

I also took a picture of my old one, he seems to be doing a touch better

 

[chewy tabacca]

Just an update with the new guy, as you can see he has put on some weight, you can no longer see his lat bones and is eating almost anything that I put in the tank.

 

[chewy tabacca]

Here is the guy a couple weeks later, nice and fat, the sailfin is new and eating a lot, I got him 2 days ago and was very skinny, time to fatten him up now