I recently purchased a blue tang 6 days ago and today was a bit concerned. Today was the first day the tang has done this but it is resting vertical close between two rocks and close to the sand. I fed the fish and the Tang did not move. I did get her to move and color looked fine and nothing physically wrong and acted normal but went back and did the same thing. Should I be concerned?
Blue Tang Question
- Thread starter fish0462
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HotRocks
Fish Fanatic!
I can only assume your talking about a Blue Hippo tang? They are very unique fish. They have tons of personality but do strange things like you are explaining above. They lay down a lot, which is not normal for most tang species, but with a hippo, I wouldn't be terribly concerned. I don't know how often you feed, but make sure it is eating at some point. Are you offering Nori? They can be a tricky fish to spot issues with just due to there temperament. If it continues not to eat, there may be something else going on. Do you quarantine your fish?
Zack K
The Butterfly Guy
Does it seem like it has difficulties swimming normal? We had one that started like that and developed in to an enlarged swim bladder. IF that's what it is, then you may want to try some de-shelled peas.
If there's no abnormalities you can see with breathing, on the fish itself, I wouldn't be to concerened. The blue hippos we've kept would do some strange things. Sometimes it would seem like it was playing dead. Very odd behaviors seem to be the norm with this species IME. I'd keep a close eye on the fish and make sure it's eating.
4FordFamily
Tang, Angel, and Wrasse Nerd!
Hippo tangs frequently hide in the rocks and wedge in right places when new or stressed. They’ll do this when they sleep, almost always.
In quarantine when they cannot wedge between things they’ll just lie on the bottom next to stuff. Completely normal behavior.
It can take weeks for them to adjust to new tanks or anything new, I wouldn’t stress. I do suggest nori access, however.
In quarantine when they cannot wedge between things they’ll just lie on the bottom next to stuff. Completely normal behavior.
It can take weeks for them to adjust to new tanks or anything new, I wouldn’t stress. I do suggest nori access, however.
It is a blue hippo tang. It is a 55gal tank with 2 clowns, panther grouper, and a royal gramma. The blue hippo is the biggest in tank. It’s been going on since this morning and he’s still doing it. When I have seen move he is breathing fine and color is fine.
NB Reefer
Active Member
Tangs are also susceptible to disease so I would monitor closely. Echoing what others said Hippos are interested tangs and all could just be normal behavior. On another note you may want to have long term plans for the hippo tang and panther grouper. You may already but the tang can grow over a foot and the grouper can grow over two feet. A 55 gallon tank is quite small for them over the long term.
Update: Looks like things didn’t go well overnight. I woke up to the tang in a different spot and struggling to swim off the bottom. Seems to only be a matter of time. Here is a pic of anyone can help maybe identify what is wrong?
HotRocks
Fish Fanatic!
Update: Looks like things didn’t go well overnight. I woke up to the tang in a different spot and struggling to swim off the bottom. Seems to only be a matter of time. Here is a pic of anyone can help maybe identify what is wrong?
Buddy, you have a sick fish on your hands. Do you have a QT? @4FordFamily
@Humblefish
4FordFamily
Tang, Angel, and Wrasse Nerd!
Looks like ich and/or velvet with several insertion points with secondary infections. That fish also doesn’t look like it has not eaten in awhile.
If we had known it was covered in spots yesterday we may have been able to give you a chance, friend. It doesn’t look good.
I’d start with a freshwater dip (for immediate velvet and ich relief to start) followed by an acriflavine bath (for the suspected infections), then treat in copper for 30 days, and metroplex, furan 2, and kanaplex in quarantine at the same time, but make sure you have a bubbler and a powerhead aimed up because this many meds will cause bacterial bloom which will eat up oxygen.
You’ll want to act quickly.
If we had known it was covered in spots yesterday we may have been able to give you a chance, friend. It doesn’t look good.
I’d start with a freshwater dip (for immediate velvet and ich relief to start) followed by an acriflavine bath (for the suspected infections), then treat in copper for 30 days, and metroplex, furan 2, and kanaplex in quarantine at the same time, but make sure you have a bubbler and a powerhead aimed up because this many meds will cause bacterial bloom which will eat up oxygen.
You’ll want to act quickly.
Minutes after this picture we lost the blue tang. I didn’t notice the spots yesterday being mostly towards the back of the tank and vertical. Should I be concerned for the other fish, they all seem to be acting normal as of right now.
HotRocks
Fish Fanatic!
Sorry for the loss. If it was indeed a parasite, yes. Your other fish will most likely be infected with the parasite. I would recommend removing them and placing in QT. Treat with copper. Allow DT to sit for 76 days fallow to allow parasites to die off. If it was velvet like @4FordFamily suspected, you have to act very quickly.
^^ Agree; if he has ich or velvet, the brown spots should go from looking like this:
To this:
Big G
captain dunsel
Sorry for your loss. Just to make sure you have all the tools to help your other fish, here's the link to Humblefish's advisory on Velvet: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/velvet-amyloodinium-ocellatum.217570/#post-2499399
If they were my fish, I would pay particular attention to the parts underlined and bolded from the above link. Humblefish has found that a bath in acriflavine has significantly improved the survival rate of fish. Hope this helps.
Emergency Treatment for Marine Velvet Disease
I recently acquired 3 fish - Longnose Butterfly, Kole Tang, Naso Tang - with velvet. None showed visible physical symptoms right away, but they all came from a tank where velvet was known to be present so I just patiently waited. Before & after pictures will follow immediately after this write-up.
In short, the Butterflyfish didn’t make it; however the two tangs did. The only difference in their treatment was I used formalin (with Methylene Blue) on the butterfly in a bath solution, whereas the tangs got acriflavine (with NO Methylene Blue). It’s also worth noting that the butterfly & Kole Tang showed symptoms the worst, whereas the Naso only had moderate visible symptoms. Tangs are also generally considered hardier than butterflyfish, so there’s that factor to consider as well. Anyway, here is the treatment I used on them:
The short version:
- 5 minute freshwater dip
- Immediately afterwards, perform a chemical bath (in saltwater matching SG/temp the fish came from). You have two options:
- Acriflavine (preferred) - Do the bath for 75-90 minutes, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain acriflavine: Acriflavine-MS and Ruby Reef Rally. DO NOT mix acriflavine with any other chemicals.
- Formalin - Do the bath for 30-60 minutes max, but remove the fish immediately at the first sign of distress. Aerate heavily both before & during the bath, and temperature control the water. The following products contain formalin: Formalin-MS, Quick Cure, Aquarium Solutions Ich-X, Kordon Rid-Ich Plus. Use protection (rubber gloves, face mask, eye protection, etc.) whenever handling formalin as it is a known carcinogen! However, you can add Methylene Blue to the formalin bath (1 capful per 2-3 gallons of bath water.)
- After the bath, place the fish in a QT pre-dosed at 80mg/gal using Chloroquine phosphate. In theory, copper (exs. Cupramine, Coppersafe, Copper Power) should work just as well as CP. However, due to how fast velvet can reproduce you don’t have the luxury of slowly ramping up the copper level as is normally advised. Therefore, the fish needs to be placed in a QT with copper already at minimum therapeutic levels. This is the advantage CP has over copper in this particular situation.
- While in QT, use a wide spectrum antibiotic (exs. Seachem Kanaplex, Furan-2) for the first week to ward off any possible bacterial infections. Secondary bacterial infections are very common in fish with preexisting parasitic infestations such as velvet.
- Keep the fish in CP or copper (at therapeutic levels) for one month. However, you can transfer the fish into a non-medicated holding tank for observation after just two weeks (explained below). DO NOT lower the CP or copper level before transferring.
