Need help, my yellow tang is acting spastic!

[citymouse]

I had a spike in Nitrates so I did a water change, about 25 gallons so far (I have a question about that later). All the fish went about their business, hiding on the bottom, in the rocks etc. The Tang was fine, then all of the sudden he starts doing this weird twitching and spastic movement, darts across the tank and is fine again for a while. He repeated this behavior the for a long time. I had a temp issue with the water I was adding, so it took a long time to refill the tank, but I kept the filters running while I heated each 5 gal jug individually with the only small heater I had on hand....the temp in the tank stayed within a few degrees, between 76 and 78. When I was done with the water change I shut off the lights, thinking the Tang might have been stressed. I just checked on him and he had his face in a rock, wiggling as if he were stuck in there, so I moved the small piece of rock and he continued wiggling, twitching and acting spastic, he darted to the top of the tank and jumped, hitting his face on the lid several times, he swam fast around the tank sideways and right side up and then finally settled behind one of the filter tubes at the top of the tank, he has that white strip on his side that everyone says is normal from time to time, I saw it when I first got him and it went away by the next day. He was completely normal up until this water change. Has anyone ever seen this before? I'm afraid he's going to die. My quarantine tank isn't set up, I ordered more salt and ran out last night but my order is delayed, taking longer than I expected...I'm unprepared for all of this.

My nitrate levels dropped a bit but they are still in the danger zone! Last week I added 5 fish and bunch of hermit crabs and snails. Unfortunately, I'm in need of some new testing kits so all I have is some of those dipsticks to test only the Nitrates and Nitrites but those are 0, my nitrates are bordering on 80! Should I do water changes every day to get these levels down? Or will that harm the fish? I know he Nitrates will harm them too, I don't know what to do, never had this issue before.
BTW, my tank is 75g.

 

[Labridaedicted]

How long have you had him? Maybe see if your LFS has salt water you can use for your QT or a local forum member? Where are you located? I would lend some salt if you're local.

The symptoms seem consistent with nutrient stress. The one time I had a similar issue, I did a fairly monstrous water change (approx 50 gallons on a 90) but made sure all parameters matched the system fairly closely (except the nitrates, of course). qt is probably the best solution as he seems as though he may be taking it worse than the others.

What were the new fish added and how old is the system? 5 fish and a batch of CUC can be a pretty hefty addition all at once.

 

[Maritimer]

Nitrates have to be pretty darned high to really start affecting fish - though lower is better, of course.

This really sounds like some kind of shock reaction, though I can't say precisely what triggered it, or how to prevent such in the future . . .

~Bruce

 

[citymouse]

Hi, sorry I had a power outage and my internet has been down ( great timing!)
I've had the fish since last Sunday, so 8 days. I added the yellow tang (small) and 4 juvenile blue Chromis. I added 29 dwarf hermits the day before the fish on Saturday (July 29th) and added 10 nerite snails and 2 nassarius vibex on Wednesday, these are all very small too. I changed 30g of water before adding anything last week and cleaned one of my filters, the other I'm going to do today.

I lost 2 blue Chromis since last night, one died before the planned water change and the other after (I think they are dead, they have vanished completely and my daughter said she saw one dead last night).

My husband is picking up the salt from Petsmart on his way home tonight, (thank you for the offer though!) so I can set up the quarantine tank and do another water change, is it too soon to do another? I figured getting the Nitrates down to safer levels is pretty important but I'm worried about changing too much too soon.

I've had the tank for 7 years, my 2 clowns have been in there since the beginning (hoping they are safe). I have no corals. I haven' tested my nitrates today yet, but at 3am they were just below 80... much too high for any tank.

I'll need lots of salt anyway since I'm upgrading to a 215g tank soon, so no big deal that I'm buying more today.

Do you think it's okay to put the Tang into a quarantine tank, it will be like a brand new tank for him, not established. I'm going to take some of the filter media from my canister filters and put it in the filter on the quarantine tank, it's a 20g tall.

Prior to adding these new fish etc. I have 2 clowns, 1 coral beauty, 1 PJ Cardinal, 1 Banaai Cardinal, 1 elusive Tiger Goby, 1 surviving Turbo snail (all of these have been in the tank for a while before I added the ones mentioned above). The newest fish was the Tiger Goby and he was added last year...never saw him again, just his face once.

 

[citymouse]

OH and do I need meds for the quarantine? I have copper on order but it won't be here until this weekend, ordered it last week.

I just don't know if I should treat as a precaution or just quarantine and watch him for now.

 

[Maritimer]

How is the tang behaving now? Does he still seem stressed, or has he returned to a more normal state?

Copper is effective against ich and velvet, but I'm not certain that's what we're dealing with here. Can you capture and post a video of the tang?

It may be that other members of the #reefsquad have seen similar "shocked" behavior from fish upon performing a water change.

~Bruce

 

[citymouse]

Currently, I can't find the Tang, I had this same problem this morning, it took 20 min to find him...that's when he was stuffed in a rock and started freaking out. I did see him later when the lights went out, he had his face stuffed in a rock again. About 10 minutes ago he was missing again, but I'll go search and see if I can get a video or at least some updated info on what he's doing.

My tank is full of live rock, but it's not that easy for fish that shape to really hide.

 

[citymouse]

ok, I just searched for about 15 min or so and finally saw his tail fin, he's way under some live rock, he must have squeezed in there from behind because there is no opening in that rock in the front of the tank where I can see him better. So, he's not acting normal at all, he's completely hiding, I have no idea if he's still doing the spasm looking things because I can literally only see the tip of his tail fin.

Also, found my 3rd Chromis, I know the 4th one definitely died because my daughter saw him floating before he vanished...I assumed the worst when I only had 2 in the open today, they're acting totally normal thankfully! As are the rest of my fish.

 

[citymouse]

I meant I "can literally only see his tail fin".. is there a way to edit comments?

Edit: NVM figured it out. now can I delete a comment?

 

[citymouse]

I moved some rocks and found the Tang, he's not acting normal but he is now acting differently, he doesn't look good at all. I made a few videos, but I can't upload them here, I get a message saying it "does not have an allowed extension"?

The fish swam out from the rocks, stayed at the bottom, appears to bump into things and then laid on his side still moving his fins, final, he moved up against the rocks and is upright but at the bottom and still not looking good. He still has the white stripe down his side. He seems to struggle to swim normally. I fear that on top of whatever made him frantic, that he hurt himself in that frenzy when he was banging against the top of the tank lids or into rocks.

 

[Maritimer]

It is possible that he injured himself additionally in his initial panic. Is he displaying any other symptoms? I'm assuming he's not displaying any other symptoms than the white bar and disorientation/poor balance - no rapid breathing, white spots, excess mucus, anything like that? (sometimes very difficult to see on a pale fish like a yellow tang.)

Videos can be uploaded someplace like Youtube, and linked to from here, but can't be directly uploaded to Reef2Reef.

@melypr1985, @ngoodermuth, @aykwm, @Humblefish - Can any of you fine folks see anything in Citymouse's description of the tang's issues that I'm missing?

~Bruce

 

[citymouse]

Other than hiding and the things I've described, I don't see any other symptoms. Currently, he's gone into hiding again, he's difficult to find but I decided to leave the lights off and leave him alone for a bit to avoid stressing him out further. The rest of the fish are going about their normal business too. I'm planning another water change today to bring down the Nitrate levels some more..unless that's a bad idea?
I got the quarantine tank set up, the salt is almost fully dissolved, I put 1 live rock in there and a plant, just in case I need to move the Tang, he'll still have a place to hide, I'm just not sure it's a good idea to move him if he's stressed or having issues because of the water change.

 

[eatbreakfast]

The constant hiding leads me to lean towards a diagnosis of velvet.

Nitrates of 80 isn't concerning for fish. It would need to be nearly 3x's that to be problematic for fish.

 

[citymouse]

It was almost 200 before I changed it 2 days ago. I had done 30g a week prior before adding fish etc. then it spiked so I did about 25g and have ready another 30g for later today, if necessary. Would velvet cause him to swim around frantically and fast as if he's disorientated? and how contagious is it? I've never had a sick saltwater fish before.

 

[citymouse]

Well, I just went to check on him and he died . I took a bunch of pictures, I don't see anything out of the ordinary on him, but here are some pictures, maybe someone can see something I'm not seeing. The hermit crabs were all over him when I found him. I think that's sand stuck near his eye too. I didn't notice any slime. I shined a flashlight near the fish to try and get a brighter pic too.

 

[Barrett]

Drop him in some tap water in a dark container to check for flukes. They will look kind of like poppyseeds.

 

[Maritimer]

Rats.

Very sorry for your loss, Citymouse. That was a beautiful tang. Was the swelling around the rim of his eyes evident while he was still alive, or is that something that happened after he passed?

Barrett's suggestion is a good one, as flukes can be passed from one fish to another.

~Bruce

 

[GHsaltie]

What about the possibility of a seizure? Although like @eatbreakfast I am also suspicious there is a parasite in the tank, especially since she lost the chromis too.

 

[Ruben's Reef]

. I'm going to take some of the filter media from my canister filters and put it in the filter on the quarantine tank, it's a 20g tall.
.

You said you have canister filter, you might need to clean your filter if is a canister. Canister filters are Nitrate factory if is not clean periodically especially on a saltwater tank.

 

[citymouse]

ugh, I flushed him! I meant to drop him in fresh water too because I just read about velvet earlier, but after pushing the hermits off him and trying to get him out of the corner of the tank, then taking pictures I completely forgot. The Chromis that died and was never to be found again...was completely normal, but I did notice early on that 3 of them were picking on 1, mostly they seemed to school together though.

Pretty sure his eyes only looked like that after he died. I was just zooming in on the videos from earlier and comparing against the after pictures, they weren't like that before.

Here's a picture of him alive and well, about 4 days ago.