Yellow Tang Blind Suddenly..Any Ideas Please?

[Robbo]

Hi All,

Looking for some help with a newly added yellow tang please?

I added two yellow tangs and a sailfin to my reef tank at the same time about 5 days ago after quarantined. All seemed fantastic for a couple of days, they ate well and settled in fine.

Suddenly I noticed that one of yellow tangs was lying flat under a rock ledge and was breathing slowly. I managed to move him easily and noticed that the tang swam around bumping into coral and rock as though he was blind. Noticed red markings along the lateral line and made a guess he was either stung by coral or one of the other tangs.

I netted him very easily(must be blind) and moved him to an isolation float box within the display tank ( No Hospital). The red marks went after a day but the fish still seems blind and wont eat in the box. I released him to see if he could cope in main tank but continued to swim into objects. Netted again very easily and back in the box. The eyes are and have been completely clear and now looks like a very healthy fish except he's blind. The poor thing must be hungry but I cant get him to eat. His breathing never really elevated too much and now is back to normal.

Parameters
8 DKH -API
460 Calc-Red sea and Triton test
1350 Mag-Red sea and Triton
Phosphates 0.0014-triton test
Nitrates 0.75 red sea


All other fish very healthy, no white spot, coral great condition.
1100 ltr tank
Fish and invert stock;
Clam Maxima
4 sifter stars
2 strom snails
Coral Banded shrimp
Suspect Mantis shrimp as can hear clicking sometimes(No idea how it got there)
Coris Wrasse
Cleaner
Sailfin
2 Yellow tangs
oscellaris

Mixed LPS and SPS Coral worth mentioning for this concern-
Acro
Frogspawn size of basketball
hammer
cataphylia
Helio
Duncan
Goniopora
Rest sps non stinging like pocylopora
NO Anems

Thanks so much in advance, been reefing for about 12 years and had tanks for 38 years and have never come across this type of issue hence me reaching out to you all.
Cheers,
Marc

 

[4FordFamily]

I'm assuming the tank is established although it almost sounds like severe ammonia burn. That doesn't jive with the rest of your story at all though.

Flukes can cause cloudy eyes, prazipro is the best fix for that, IMO. Perhaps it was stung by something I can't imagine another tang doing that to him. I've also seen similar things happen after being medicated with things like copper (very rare but I've seen it happen in 1:25 or so of my tangs generally to a lesser degree).

I would lean toward something stinging but might want to do prazipro just in case. Let's see what others say

[HASHTAG]#reefsquad[/HASHTAG]

 

[4FordFamily]

I just caught something, I assumed the eyes were cloudy, no?

If not and he just seems suddenly blind that indicates to me maybe a stroke, which might also explain that behavior and happens I've seen it twice or three times over my 12 years in this hobby. All of these times it was in tangs. I typically have 5-15 at a time in various tanks.

 

[Robbo]

Thanks 4Fordfamily

Correct the eyes are quite clear and never had any cloudiness whatsoever. The tank is about 10 months old so no ammonia, monitored with Seneye and ammonia sits at 0.001ppm stable.

Stroke sounds plausible, poor thing. I hope the vision comes back and/or he starts eating soon.

Thanks again, appreciate your thoughts and experience

 

[CastAway]

I had a yellow tang once that behaved similarly; swimming into things, listing to one side or another, laying on the bottom. It might have appeared blind, although I did not think of that at the time. It turned out to be an infection in it's air bladder, discernible by an internal dark spot.

Would definitely start a quarantine, isolate and treat, for it's sake and the other fish in your display's sake. Whatever it turns out to be, even a sting, this course of action seems a safe one.

Again, let's see what others say......

(WELCOME to R2R btw!!! - Cheers!)

 

[melypr1985]

Welcome to R2R! I'm sorry for your tang troubles.

With the lack of a cloudy or swollen eye I'm going to agree with 4ford on this. The redness could indicate some kind of trauma, but it went away so quickly. Was the redness on both sides of the head? And only there for 24 hours-ish?

 

[Robbo]

I had a yellow tang once that behaved similarly; swimming into things, listing to one side or another, laying on the bottom. It might have appeared blind, although I did not think of that at the time. It turned out to be an infection in it's air bladder, discernible by an internal dark spot.

Would definitely start a quarantine, isolate and treat, for it's sake and the other fish in your display's sake. Whatever it turns out to be, even a sting, this course of action seems a safe one.

Again, let's see what others say......

(WELCOME to R2R btw!!! - Cheers!)

Thanks Castaway for welcoming me and appreciate your comments.
Isolated in small breeder box but no hospital tank available unfortunately ( I Need to get one for home soon). Quarantined at wholesaler/importer friends tank here in Australia for about 4 weeks with other tangs prior to adding to display tank with very small doses of copper. No internal dark spot visible and red marks have now disappeared from lateral line. Fish looks extremely healthy apart from not reacting to visual triggers like my hand.

Cheers

 

[CastAway]

Hmmm. Curios what the prognosis is for a blind tang.

Sorry Robbo.

 

[Humblefish]

Not sure if its what's causing the blindness, but "acclimation stress" could have caused red streaks on the YT. Look here under "Acclimation Stress" for a pic of a YT with this condition: http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/disease.html

Did the SG of your QT and the DT match?

 

[Robbo]

Welcome to R2R! I'm sorry for your tang troubles.

With the lack of a cloudy or swollen eye I'm going to agree with 4ford on this. The redness could indicate some kind of trauma, but it went away so quickly. Was the redness on both sides of the head? And only there for 24 hours-ish?

Thanks Meredith,
Redness was only on one side on the body along the lateral line and not on the head at all. To me it looked like a tiff had occurred and a scalpel from other tang had repeatedly struck him, but maybe it was a coral sting..im at a loss

 

[rayn]

Welcome to R2R! Sorry about the tang. All other fish still looking good?

 

[Robbo]

Not sure if its what's causing the blindness, but "acclimation stress" could have caused red streaks on the YT. Look here under "Acclimation Stress" for a pic of a YT with this condition: http://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/disease.html

Did the SG of your QT and the DT match?

SG was 1.021 in QT and acclimated for 3 hours to 1.026 in DT. Thanks for help much appreciated

 

[Robbo]

Welcome to R2R! Sorry about the tang. All other fish still looking good?

Thank you so much, Looking great no issue whatsoever and thanks for your interest

 

[maroun.c]

This raises back 13 years old memories when my hippo tang all of a sudden got blind. a few questions/notes:
-The fish being easily scooped indicates there is more than blindness going on. fish would still feel any motion around them and try to escape it.
-If you look closely at the contour of the eyes (better compare it to another yellow tang eyes) do you notice a whiter contour of the eye or any change int he color of the contour? this happened around 2 months after my tang got blind and at the time was explained as decreased blood flow to the eyes.
-how about the curvature of the eyes? do you notice any curvature of the eyeball?
-is the fish behaving differently at night and day? that could tell that its still perceiving light and acting normally or not. Mone lost track of day and night and would rest sometimes in the middle of the day and swim at night.
I resorted to feeding my fish once every few days in a bowl to make sure it was getting enough food. i moved it to a large Q tank I had to facilitate catching ti for feeding and as it looked sad to peopel watching the tank... amazingly the fish developed its ability to find where the food would settle at feeding time and lived close to there (believe led by flow in that area) And would immediately head there and start nipping for food each time i fed. it lived for months and sadly died in the feeding bowl months later during a feeding session. not sure what happened just came back 5-10 minutes later to find it dead.
I also had a pigmy angelgo blind at higher copper levels (at the time didn't have Cupramine and was using other forms of copper known to be hard to control and believe concentrations where higher than what was on the label...) it immediately regained vidion as I dropped copper level.
hope yours regains its vision.

 

[Humblefish]

SG was 1.021 in QT and acclimated for 3 hours to 1.026 in DT. Thanks for help much appreciated

Just a theory but ... If the higher SG caused capillary congestion (or even rupturing of a capillary blood vessel), then that could have led to a subconjunctival hemorrhage (broken blood vessel in the eye). Next time I would ensure SG (and temp) of the QT & DT match, and just put the fish right in without any acclimation.

 

[Robbo]

This raises back 13 years old memories when my hippo tang all of a sudden got blind. a few questions/notes:
-The fish being easily scooped indicates there is more than blindness going on. fish would still feel any motion around them and try to escape it.
-If you look closely at the contour of the eyes (better compare it to another yellow tang eyes) do you notice a whiter contour of the eye or any change int he color of the contour? this happened around 2 months after my tang got blind and at the time was explained as decreased blood flow to the eyes.
-how about the curvature of the eyes? do you notice any curvature of the eyeball?
-is the fish behaving differently at night and day? that could tell that its still perceiving light and acting normally or not. Mone lost track of day and night and would rest sometimes in the middle of the day and swim at night.
I resorted to feeding my fish once every few days in a bowl to make sure it was getting enough food. i moved it to a large Q tank I had to facilitate catching ti for feeding and as it looked sad to peopel watching the tank... amazingly the fish developed its ability to find where the food would settle at feeding time and lived close to there (believe led by flow in that area) And would immediately head there and start nipping for food each time i fed. it lived for months and sadly died in the feeding bowl months later during a feeding session. not sure what happened just came back 5-10 minutes later to find it dead.
I also had a pigmy angelgo blind at higher copper levels (at the time didn't have Cupramine and was using other forms of copper known to be hard to control and believe concentrations where higher than what was on the label...) it immediately regained vidion as I dropped copper level.
hope yours regains its vision.

Thanks so much for your insight Maroun, much appreciated. I have held off from doing a water change and may do one later today, that might have a positive effect.

 

[Robbo]

Just a theory but ... If the higher SG caused capillary congestion (or even rupturing of a capillary blood vessel), then that could have led to a subconjunctival hemorrhage (broken blood vessel in the eye). Next time I would ensure SG (and temp) of the QT & DT match, and just put the fish right in without any acclimation.

Thanks so much Humblefish, really appreciate the support. Would this type of haemorrhage occur immediately after placing in tank?
It took two days after being in tank for this to occur and wouldn't it be visible to myself upon close inspection of the eye?

Definitely will raise SG in QT slowly to match DT in future. Also picture attached of the fish which incidentally did not respond to flash in lower picture. Good view of eye for everyone's inspection which I hope may help. I really want to see how he goes if I let him out of the float box again.

 

[Robbo]

 

[Live Water]

This is really strange, have you tried doing a water change? Just to be sure that there's nothing in the water that is only affecting this tang? Maybe he is just hyper sensitive

 

[Robbo]

This is really strange, have you tried doing a water change? Just to be sure that there's nothing in the water that is only affecting this tang? Maybe he is just hyper sensitive

Thanks so much, will do.