My mistake with tangs and iron

mikereefing · Jun 25, 2020

Hey guys. I just wanted to share my mistake I made today (and utterly shame myself for my stupidity). I had a yellow Tang in my 66g DT (total water volume 75 gallons with sump). It's been living happily for the past 2 months and was active this morning. My chaeto originally exploded in growth but was recently melting away. I went through many posts that recommend dosing iron to bring the chaeto back to life. So I grabbed the seachem flourish iron that I've used for my freshwater planted tanks and dosed enough for only 50 gallons, so roughly 2/3 of the recommended dose on the bottle. I should realized that this was too much as I shouldn't be dosing based on the entire tank volume because it's not like my chaeto grows out of control in my DT. 3 hours later, I see my favorite fish, my yellow Tang, dead on the sand. My clowns, wrasse, and watchman goby are fine. There was no sign of any other diseases on it and my last new fish I introduced was months ago and they all go through copper quarantine. I made a quick Google search and apparently this has happened to other people as well. I'm angry at myself for letting this happen and not doing a thorough investigation prior to dosing. I just wanted to share this experience to others who may not know about this possible sensitivity for tangs.

ca1ore · Jun 26, 2020

That’s unfortunate. I’ve been dosing iron for years, though in a dosing pump so just tiny amounts at a time. I also use ferrion rather than the FW stuff.

pdxmonkeyboy · Jun 26, 2020

That sucks. Dont beat yourself up too much it happens all the time. I once had an achilies tang in copper. It was late, ammonia in the QT was a little high so i added a little prime.

Dead in the morning.

WVNed · Jun 26, 2020

I did it as well. Don't use Seachem Flourish in a tank with yellow tangs.

WVNed said:
Apparently Seachem Flourish Iron is deadly to yellow tangs. I did mine in. I am not the only one I just found out. I had assumed it was a coincidence that the tang disappeared.
I just ordered Brightwell Ferrion from BRS.

I have had no issues with the Ferrion

Eagle_Steve · Jun 26, 2020

WVNed said:
I did it as well. Don't use Seachem Flourish in a tank with yellow tangs.

I have had no issues with the Ferrion

Add scopas tangs to that list as well. With Ferrion I also have no issues with any fish.

ca1ore · Jun 26, 2020

Interesting, I wonder what is in the FW flourish that is lethal?

Thespammailaccount · Jun 26, 2020

I am am so sorry for you loss. For what it is worth a “reef” is by far the most complex “pet” that I have kept. You would need a PhD to master and even then you would not know everything and would still learn by experience

mikereefing · Jun 26, 2020

Thank you all for your support and information! I just feel terrible because the death of my favorite fish was due to my own action. I hope the information in this thread from myself and everyone else here can help prevent a similar incident from happening in the future.

WVNed · Jun 26, 2020

All you can do is what I did. Get another one. It has been fine.

Reef GE · Aug 10, 2020

pdxmonkeyboy said:
That sucks. Dont beat yourself up too much it happens all the time. I once had an achilies tang in copper. It was late, ammonia in the QT was a little high so i added a little prime.

Dead in the morning.

I don’t follow. What is the relation between copper, ammonia and prime. I have a tang too and didn’t understand your post.

Skynyrd Fish · Aug 10, 2020

You can’t use prime with copper. I forgot why but someone will chime in I’m sure.

pdxmonkeyboy · Aug 10, 2020

Reef GE said:
I don’t follow. What is the relation between copper, ammonia and prime. I have a tang too and didn’t understand your post.

directly from admin at Seachem forum: Because Prime, like all water conditioners, is a reducing agent, it has the potential to reduce the Cupramine from the safe Cu2+ form to a very toxic Cu+ form.

This is why I use chelated copper forms like copper power. It is safe to dose prime if needed.

Reef GE · Aug 10, 2020

pdxmonkeyboy said:
directly from admin at Seachem forum: Because Prime, like all water conditioners, is a reducing agent, it has the potential to reduce the Cupramine from the safe Cu2+ form to a very toxic Cu+ form.

This is why I use chelated copper forms like copper power. It is safe to dose prime if needed.

Thanks! I have copper power so no worries now!