My Yellow tang developed brown spots a few weeks ago.
Heavily stocked 450l reef system with SPS, LPS and a few softies and 20 fish (4 large). Tank is fully automated with Apex and usually runs with no intervention when I'm away for more than 4 weeks at a time. Had no issues for last 4 years.
Doing building work last few months and didn't notice my ATS, UV, roller mat and Rowaphos reactor all broke down. Must have been for a while, as when I did tests after noticing a few corals starting to deflate and these reddish brown spots on Tang, nitrate was already at 243 (usually 65) and Phosphate at 0.3. (Usually 0.07). Later I also noticed tiny white specs on Yellow and Powder Blue tang, and PBT and some other fish scratching against rock.
Three weeks later YT is fine and corals are starting to inflate.
This is what I did to fix it.
- three water changes 30%, 50% and 50% (previous water change was 24 months before)
- new phosphate reactor
- new UV (D-D 80w at 1000l/h on my 450l tank)
- added new blue neon goby (previous died 6 months before, and had no luck adding golden one)
- started feeding norri daily (had stopped for 6 months during build)
- started feeding frozen mysis soaked in seachem Vitality (only been feeding Vitalis Platinum Marine Pellets on auto feeder, with weekly norri before)
Also got new ATS and installing new rollermat today, but issues resolved before these.
Currently Nitrate is back to (my) normal of 65 but phosphate still a bit high at 0.26 but that should come down as gfos reactor pulls residual phosphate from rock
So appear to have fixed issues with no medication.
Turning point was adding the blue neon goby. Yellow tang immediately parked next to it and didn't move for about a week. Brown immediately started to fade. I suspect the brown was bruising from it scraping against rocks although I never saw the YT doing this. Now that YT is fine PBT has taken its place at the cleaning station
.
Personally, my view is there are always parasites and bacteria in the water, but healthy fish tolerate them better, a good cleaner fish keeps their skin reasonably clear, and an overpowered UV wat low flow rates keeps the numbers down. In my case everything failing at once created a perfect storm.
Heavily stocked 450l reef system with SPS, LPS and a few softies and 20 fish (4 large). Tank is fully automated with Apex and usually runs with no intervention when I'm away for more than 4 weeks at a time. Had no issues for last 4 years.
Doing building work last few months and didn't notice my ATS, UV, roller mat and Rowaphos reactor all broke down. Must have been for a while, as when I did tests after noticing a few corals starting to deflate and these reddish brown spots on Tang, nitrate was already at 243 (usually 65) and Phosphate at 0.3. (Usually 0.07). Later I also noticed tiny white specs on Yellow and Powder Blue tang, and PBT and some other fish scratching against rock.
Three weeks later YT is fine and corals are starting to inflate.
This is what I did to fix it.
- three water changes 30%, 50% and 50% (previous water change was 24 months before)
- new phosphate reactor
- new UV (D-D 80w at 1000l/h on my 450l tank)
- added new blue neon goby (previous died 6 months before, and had no luck adding golden one)
- started feeding norri daily (had stopped for 6 months during build)
- started feeding frozen mysis soaked in seachem Vitality (only been feeding Vitalis Platinum Marine Pellets on auto feeder, with weekly norri before)
Also got new ATS and installing new rollermat today, but issues resolved before these.
Currently Nitrate is back to (my) normal of 65 but phosphate still a bit high at 0.26 but that should come down as gfos reactor pulls residual phosphate from rock
So appear to have fixed issues with no medication.
Turning point was adding the blue neon goby. Yellow tang immediately parked next to it and didn't move for about a week. Brown immediately started to fade. I suspect the brown was bruising from it scraping against rocks although I never saw the YT doing this. Now that YT is fine PBT has taken its place at the cleaning station
.Personally, my view is there are always parasites and bacteria in the water, but healthy fish tolerate them better, a good cleaner fish keeps their skin reasonably clear, and an overpowered UV wat low flow rates keeps the numbers down. In my case everything failing at once created a perfect storm.
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