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- Jan 6, 2016
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I'm at a loss currently but here's the story: I have been running my current tank (140 gallons) for almost 2 years now and all the fish in it have been there for over a year. I have 2 clowns, 5 Chromis viridis, 5 Lyretail anthias, 1 Bangaii cardinal, 1 Six line wrasse and a yellow(!) scopas tang. All fish are happy and fat and I have never seen any signs of Ich or other parasites. So 3 weeks ago I decided to get a powder blue tang. I have always liked those and my LFS had a few really nice ones so I got one.
I drip acclimated it for a few hours and then added it to the tank. My scopas tang almost instantly started harassing the powder blue so the next day I bought a bunch of egg create to divide the thank and separate the two for a while. It was working great and the powder blue started eating like the other fish. Unfortunately one morning just a few days later I found the powder blue breathing really hard and not moving much. It died within a couple of hours. I figured it might have been the initial harassment from the Scopas tang or maybe I didn't acclimate it for long enough... Anyway, a week later I was at the LFS again and I told them about the fish dying, so they were really nice and let me buy their last one they had with a discount. This time I thought I should take it real slow, so I put him in a small 15 gallon tank with some live rock from my sump, a heater and a pump for circulation and then added small amounts of water from my main tank during several days. He was doing great for over a week without any signs of sickness or anything so I added him to the tank last Sunday.
Yesterday I noticed he seemed a bit slow and was breathing pretty hard. This morning he was lying on the bottom of the tank, still alive but breathing really hard. So in a panic i picked him up and freshwater dipped him for five minutes. At first he seemed to recover a bit and started swimming again but after just an hour or so he also died. I could not see any flukes or anything in the bucket of freshwater i dipped him in. Only thing was some slight whitish coloration on his pectoral fins but it didn't look like ich to me. Now I feel terrible and I'm not sure if I ever will buy another fish... Anybody had any similar experiences or any clues to what could have killed them?
I drip acclimated it for a few hours and then added it to the tank. My scopas tang almost instantly started harassing the powder blue so the next day I bought a bunch of egg create to divide the thank and separate the two for a while. It was working great and the powder blue started eating like the other fish. Unfortunately one morning just a few days later I found the powder blue breathing really hard and not moving much. It died within a couple of hours. I figured it might have been the initial harassment from the Scopas tang or maybe I didn't acclimate it for long enough... Anyway, a week later I was at the LFS again and I told them about the fish dying, so they were really nice and let me buy their last one they had with a discount. This time I thought I should take it real slow, so I put him in a small 15 gallon tank with some live rock from my sump, a heater and a pump for circulation and then added small amounts of water from my main tank during several days. He was doing great for over a week without any signs of sickness or anything so I added him to the tank last Sunday.
Yesterday I noticed he seemed a bit slow and was breathing pretty hard. This morning he was lying on the bottom of the tank, still alive but breathing really hard. So in a panic i picked him up and freshwater dipped him for five minutes. At first he seemed to recover a bit and started swimming again but after just an hour or so he also died. I could not see any flukes or anything in the bucket of freshwater i dipped him in. Only thing was some slight whitish coloration on his pectoral fins but it didn't look like ich to me. Now I feel terrible and I'm not sure if I ever will buy another fish... Anybody had any similar experiences or any clues to what could have killed them?
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