yellow tang

[RYANRODRIGUEZ]

i have been in the game for over 1 year now and i seem to have mastered it all but i cant for the life of me keep a yellow tang. im on my 3rd one now and its in the sick tank going on 2 weeks now. i have tride to reintroduse it back in the main tank but it gets sick again so i put it back for another couple days or a week. it doesnt have ich just some dark brown spots on its right side by its head and its right eye is cloudy. like i said after a couple week in the sick tank it looks great. WHY WONT IT COME BACK AROUND?

 

[wayne]

Sounds like you're getting dodgy stock. You still have the 50 - what's in there, what's the setup and water quality. Your QT is a ten?
How much live rock in the tank? What nitrates, algae. How often water changes. I'm suspicious if it recovers in QT and get sick in the big tank

 

[S.Reef]

I would be worried about water quality more then anything else. Do you have fish in the display? I cant really diagnose the problem.

 

[RYANRODRIGUEZ]

wayne- nice to see u remember me. yes i still have the 50 and i have 4 damsels 1 royal gramma, 2 green chromis, 1 coral beauty anglefish, and a mroon clown fish. with about 20lbs of live rock. nitrates are fine along with everything else all other fish are fine. ohh yah i also have a starfish. algae is good and i feed the frozed assortment pack of food. and yes i have a 10 gal QT tank with copper and green x.
s.reef- what do u mean "do i have fish in the display" if you mean the QT tank no just the tang.

 

[wayne]

oh well, I'd say your overstocked. Putting a new fish pushes you over the limit for waste handling, dissolved oxygen et al, and as the newest fish, and one that's comparatively less hardy, it's the tang that suffers. Your nitrates are low as I see you have another post up for algae, and the algae is chewing the nitrate out as soon as it's produced, but there are other organic products you're not testing for. If your lfs will lend you one , try an electronic redox meter for a few days.

 

[S.Reef]

Yeah...you are nearing a very filled tank. I bet the oxygen level is low, and isnt helping the tangs out very much.

 

[RYANRODRIGUEZ]

but i only have 9 fish in there 8 of them are 1 inch in size and 1 is 2 inches. thats 10 inches of fish in a 50gal tank. i understand with live rock and sand the amount of water is less but come on. thats 1 inch per 5 galons. this is a well established tank. do you all think thats why the tang is doing so bad or you think its just that fish.

 

[wayne]

It's certainly not helping. How goes it for aggression?

At the end of the day you say the tang does fine in QT and get sick in the display....?
How often water changes , how much water movement?

 

[RYANRODRIGUEZ]

water changes every month 5 gal. with the power head the protien skimmer and the filter i would think thats plenty of water movement. anyways its dead the QT tank.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

i do 5-6 a week min and it doesn't seem to be enough.

 

[RYANRODRIGUEZ]

thats almost a 50% water change per month...is that healthy for the bio filter?

 

[KahluaZzZ]

well i don't know but if i don't i'm in trouble..got 2 much phos

 

[1979camaro]

sorry the tang died...im thinking it might be time to skip the tang in the future if you have already lost that many

kahluazzz, have you figured out where the phosphate is coming from in your system? have you tested your top off and w/c water? what kind of substrate did you use?

i think this is a problem you need to get resolved before you get the 55 going, just so you don't have to keep dealing with it

 

[KahluaZzZ]

i'm not buying any livestock for now. My tap water has phosphates. I ordered a ro/di 2 weeks ago and the guy told me i was only available the 19...4 more days.
I am building a 10 g sump but i have problems with the overflow.
I'll also buy a polyfiter pad.

My tank phos are .025/0.5 .

 

[KahluaZzZ]

oh and my substrate is aragonite crushed coral ( 30 pounds )

 

[1979camaro]

ah yes...very good that you tracked down the problem...i asked about the substrate because some people find that to be problematic, but yours ought to be just fine (as im sure you know)

 

[KahluaZzZ]

i might buy some more . My aragonite crushed coral bed isn't high enough. Not too apealing..i'd prefer a deeper bed.

 

[S.Reef]

Sucks about the tang...I probably wouldnt try one for a while.

 

[RYANRODRIGUEZ]

yah not i cant find my royal gamma. WTF...i rechecked my nitrates and they are at 0ppg...i dont have any fish eating fish so not sure what happened. ohh well no more fish for a while i gonna start builting on LR up. talk later.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

I had a little color change with my tang...he's very very easy to scare. When i introduced a percula, he had cloudy eyes too. Tangs tend to be infected with parasites too and the best way to get rid or that is a cleaner shrimp since they have a super relationship.

Don't know what else to say Ryan..i checked wetwebmedia and people getting brown patches were told to treat their fish with FW dips or cleaner fish/shrimp.