Powder Blue Tang died after a few days

Lmdw121 · Mar 9, 2020

I have a 75 gallon reef tank. I purchased a powder blue tang and it was doing great the first couple of days and then stopped eating on day 3 and hid in the rocks. I had my water tested and it was perfect. This is my 2nd attempt at a tang. I heard they are hard to keep, but what is the proper way of keeping these? I have corals, an urchin, starfish, 2 wrasses, a cardinal, 2 clowns, 2 different gobys, and a blue throat trigger. Any advice is appreciated!!

Flippers4pups · Mar 9, 2020

Lmdw121 said:
I have a 75 gallon reef tank. I purchased a powder blue tang and it was doing great the first couple of days and then stopped eating on day 3 and hid in the rocks. I had my water tested and it was perfect. This is my 2nd attempt at a tang. I heard they are hard to keep, but what is the proper way of keeping these? I have corals, an urchin, starfish, 2 wrasses, a cardinal, 2 clowns, 2 different gobys, and a blue throat trigger. Any advice is appreciated!!

How do you acclimate your fish?

AcroNem · Mar 9, 2020

Flippers asked a good question. I would also suggest making sure you quarantine it before you add it to your system. A powder blue is not the easiest and they pretty much always have some kind of parasite or infection.

jaxteller007 · Mar 10, 2020

Isn't a 75g tank awful small for a powder blue?

vetteguy53081 · Mar 10, 2020

jaxteller007 said:
Isn't a 75g tank awful small for a powder blue?

It can be done but considered a temporary home. Acclimation and diet are very important with powder blues and Achilles tangs as they are prone to disease quicker than other members of tang family.
Quarantine is best bet for the two mentioned above.
realizing not everyone has a QT system, next importance is acclimation. I acclimated my powder blue over 3 hours Floating bag for 1/2 hour and releasing into bucket then adding a cup of water every 20 minutes over a 3 hour period. I then scooped tang into large cup and poured off water and released into my display tank.
Do not enter bag water into QT or display tank

Lmdw121 · Mar 10, 2020

Flippers4pups said:
How do you acclimate your fish?

I drip them for an hour. That is what we were told to do from the beginning.

OrionN · Mar 10, 2020

Longer acclimation is not better. It is all in the salinity of the tank at the LFS and your tank. Going up on salinity is harder than down.
I don’t spend hours and hours acclimate my fish. If salinity is near each other I just acclimate for temp which is about 15 min and dump it in.
the fish was fine and eating initially then stop after 3 days then it can be any of the below

1 Got a disease and get worst
2 Stressed by fish in your tank
3 Stressed by condition of your tank
4 It was in sub therapeutic med at the LFS which sorta keep Disease in check, once in your tank the disease progress

there may be other reasons. It is impossible to determine from the information given.

PBT is not the easiest of tangs. Try something easier first. Maybe a kole tang or a yellow tang. Neither get too big for your tank.

AcroNem · Mar 10, 2020

Agreed^ also yes a 75 is quite small for a PBT.

The whole "you can rehome it when it's too big" saying is irresponsible advice and we should honestly stop giving it. You either have the space and ability to care for an animal or you don't. I would definitely suggest a quarantine system for any future inhabitants, it adds steps sure but can prevent issues like this or wiping out entire systems.