Powder Blue Tang Question

[Bleys19]

So I tried my first powder blue tang and after a few hours, the fish was dead. I never lost a fish right away before so I'm curious what went wrong.
So,
Bought it yesterday at 10:30am from the lfs who just received it that morning around 10am, a healthy looking 2.8 inch powder blue.
The local fish store keeps it salinity at .18
I slowly raised the salinity to .24 using a half cup of my tank water every 5 minutes into the bag while floating the fish.
The fish store is only a few minutes away from my house so I don't think ammonia should be a problem.
As soon as I release the fish, the fish was eating off the rocks with my other qt fish in a 60 gallon with live rock.
Other fish are 2 inch coral beauty, 2 inch flame angelfish, and a 2 inch bristletooth tang. Getting them ready for my new 125 gallon fowlr.

The powder blue was swimming around and checking out everything, didn't pay attention to the other tang and seem fine.

Around 6pm the powder blue stop swimming and started to hug a rock for about a good 15 minutes and then just fall over like dead. The snails came out and were on top of it and then the powder blue came alive again and went nuts swimming sideways into rocks and things, then died for real.

My temp is always 76-77 and I use filter well water from my house.

So do you think its Acclimation sickness?, Bad timing due to shipping delays or bad harvest practices? or Something in my well water toxic to powder blues but not the other fish?

 

[DrMMI]

So I tried my first powder blue tang and after a few hours, the fish was dead. I never lost a fish right away before so I'm curious what went wrong.
So,
Bought it yesterday at 10:30am from the lfs who just received it that morning around 10am, a healthy looking 2.8 inch powder blue.
The local fish store keeps it salinity at .18
I slowly raised the salinity to .24 using a half cup of my tank water every 5 minutes into the bag while floating the fish.
The fish store is only a few minutes away from my house so I don't think ammonia should be a problem.
As soon as I release the fish, the fish was eating off the rocks with my other qt fish in a 60 gallon with live rock.
Other fish are 2 inch coral beauty, 2 inch flame angelfish, and a 2 inch bristletooth tang. Getting them ready for my new 125 gallon fowlr.

The powder blue was swimming around and checking out everything, didn't pay attention to the other tang and seem fine.

Around 6pm the powder blue stop swimming and started to hug a rock for about a good 15 minutes and then just fall over like dead. The snails came out and were on top of it and then the powder blue came alive again and went nuts swimming sideways into rocks and things, then died for real.

My temp is always 76-77 and I use filter well water from my house.

So do you think its Acclimation sickness?, Bad timing due to shipping delays or bad harvest practices? or Something in my well water toxic to powder blues but not the other fish?

I've had a lot of bad luck with powder blues. They're just very sensitive fish. I had Given that it had just come in to the LFS, who knows how healthy it actually was. Assuming your parameters are ok, it could have been anything from some sort of infection, acclimation issues, getting attacked by one of the other fish, stress, etc.

 

[Bleys19]

Thanks for your insight, the lfs did give me store credit for another one or different fish. What other parameters besides temp and salinity are important for powder blues?

As example:
Could they handle a temp drop of 10 degrees overnight if power goes out once establish to tank?

 

[DrMMI]

I don't think most reef fish would handle that much of a temp drop that quickly, let alone powder blues. I think for the most part, salinity and temp are the most important when acclimating. I don't know if pH is super important for fish, but I think if it's within range, it should be ok.

 

[Timfish]

My vote is the Powder Blue already had a problem, probably before your LFS got it. The added stress of being caught andtransported may have been a factor in accelerateing it's death but I'd be inclined to think it's only chance of survival would have been to be placed in a QT with antibiotics. Fish are corals are subjected to sudden changes when thermoclines move up or down and locally thunderstorms or cyclones can abruptly change salinity so I don't think the changes you made were primary causes of it's demise. In my maintenece business over the years I've seen problems crop up in a group of fish weeks after they've been purchased and sometimes months after they've gone through QT. I don't see that you did anything wrong with the way you acclimated it. A healthy fish I suspect should have done fine. But for what it's worth to minimize stress I prefer to place fish in a bucket with an airline bubbling, a piece of PVC to hide in and use a slow drip to quadriple the amount of water over a period of several hours.

 

[epicaquarium]

Hello,
We keep Powder Blue Tang in most of our saltwater aquarium and we must admit that it's not easy.
You need to keep an eye on it and moderate it.
I wanted to ask does your Powder Blue Tang had a White spot on his body? That kind of disease can cause the death of the fish.
Another thing you need to be careful with Powder Blue Tang is that they are very slight and sensitive to changes in tank condition. We think that is the reason your Tang is dead.
You should read a Powder Blue Tang care guide next time you will consider keeping it.
To prevent deaths like this in the future we suggest doing some research first for the fish you are keeping.