Blue tang sick or stressed?

Ryanj71687 · Mar 1, 2019

hi everyone I have a small about 2 inch blue tang for about 2 weeks. Through the first week was swimming and eating just fine. Recently it has been just laying around in between my veggi clip and behind the rocks. Seems like it’s breathing a little heavy and ate like a pig intill today where it did not care about eating. Did a water change on Tuesday and have checked all my water parameters which were good. No signs of ick or velvet. So is this normal for a new tang. Is it stress or sick?

Dom · Mar 1, 2019

Please post pictures.

After a week, it should be acclimated to it's environment and not stressed. That he was eating and has now stopped suggests to me that he has fallen ill.

Reefer5640 · Mar 1, 2019

Have you noticed any other tank mates picking on it? Anytime a fish stops eating in my experience it’s either getting picked on and the other fish won’t let it eat or it’s sick. Heavy breathing, lathargic, and not eating says sick fish to me.

Ryanj71687 · Mar 1, 2019

Really hard to get a picture bc he is swimming behind the rocks but the only other fish with him is a maroon clown and they are same size show no signs of aggression. He did eat some nori today but not a lot. I have 2 very young kids that like to point at the fish and touch the tank only reason why I was thinking stress

Ryanj71687 · Mar 1, 2019

Came out some

Reefer5640 · Mar 1, 2019

At this point you can either wait to see what signs he shows next or intervene preemptively. If it were me I’d do a methylene blue or malachite green dip. The hardest part of treating fish is knowing when to act. He’s stressed now and trying to catch him and pulling him out to do a dip is going to be hard on him but if he’s truly sick the longer you wait the harder it will be on him. There aren’t a lot of meds that I would dose straight to my display tank... do you have a separate tank you can throw him in? And do you have any meds or can you get them locally

Ryanj71687 · Mar 1, 2019

Reefer5640 said:
At this point you can either wait to see what signs he shows next or intervene preemptively. If it were me I’d do a methylene blue or malachite green dip. The hardest part of treating fish is knowing when to act. He’s stressed now and trying to catch him and pulling him out to do a dip is going to be hard on him but if he’s truly sick the longer you wait the harder it will be on him. There aren’t a lot of meds that I would dose straight to my display tank... do you have a separate tank you can throw him in? And do you have any meds or can you get them locally

I do have another tank I can set up and only have cupermine on hand. I would rather try the dip before that tho

Frtdrmrose7 · Mar 1, 2019

He does have a pretty severe pinched stomach which is indicative of internal parasites. You can mix metro or GC with Focus in his food add a drop of garlic to entice him. Feed this for 10-14 days. This is reef safe btw.