View Full Version : powder blue tang worries
Hi.
I've had a marine aquarium a few months and just bought a powder blue tang. Now i've got him i've read that they are prone to ich and he seems to scratch himself on the rocks quite a bit but i can't see any marks on him. he feeds off the bottom of the tank a lot and sometimes flakes that i put in. he swims around quite a lot but his colour is more grey than blue and he was like this when i bought him. should i be worried about him and trwat him for ich. whats the best way to do this as i've got clown fish, yellow tailed damsels and firefish and they've all been happy and healthy.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Sian
Reefscape
10-30-2007, 7:40 AM
They are very prone to ich yes and the scratching is a good sign that something is not right. However, you need to be able to see whats wrong before a suggested routine of treatment can be suggested. Of course, for ich, start having a real close look for white spots, and the immediate you see something, you should remove the tang into a quarantine/hospital tank and prepare for treatment depending on what is seen as wrong...
Niko
They are very prone to ich yes and the scratching is a good sign that something is not right. However, you need to be able to see whats wrong before a suggested routine of treatment can be suggested. Of course, for ich, start having a real close look for white spots, and the immediate you see something, you should remove the tang into a quarantine/hospital tank and prepare for treatment depending on what is seen as wrong...
Niko
hi.
thanks for getting back to me. i've looked on the internet and i'm getting more paranoid. My tang is eating and darting around but still scratching now and again. I can't tell if his breathing is quicker as i don't really know what it should be like. There are no signs of grainy spots of any colour so does this mean that i shouldn't attempt to move him out unless i see some. All my other fish are looking really healthy and i'm also worried that they might catch something.
thanks again
Reefscape
10-30-2007, 5:14 PM
What i would so is have a read through the following article and see what relation it bears on this that your experiencing...my first thoughts are still on an early stage of ich personally
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ichartmar.htm
Niko
Keep a close eye on him and you soak his food in Garlic. Alot of times they can recover on there own if they are healthy. In the future you definfinately should invest in a small QT tank.
Can you provide some details on your tank setup? Size and Parameters would be a good start.
If he in fact does have ich, it would be best to move him to QT/Hospital tank and treat him accordingly. However sometimes it will cause him more stress. How big is the tang?
Hi.
I'm not sure if you can see from these piccies but he's got a few darker marks on his body although we bought him with some of them i don't know if there's more now. he's swimming around a lot more today and eating and there's still no sign of any spots. i think he may be scratching less as well.
2 clown fish, 2 yellow tailed damsels, 2 purple firefish, 10 hermit crabs, 5 turbo snails.
ph 8.1
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 5 or below
its 300 litre tank
Reefscape
10-31-2007, 8:25 AM
I am usure at this point if its the colour of the photo or the fish, but it looks very pake indeed to me. If its the fish, the pale colour of the fish indecates the fish either stressed or unhealthy. These fish should be very vibrant in colour, as per the attched photo, to show the difference..From the photo, i dont see any signs of ich on the fish, from what i can tell anyway. Do the damsels pay much attention to the tang? What were the colours like compared to when you purchased the fish? has it changed much in appearance or vibrance?
Niko
Thats alot bigger than I was expecting. I believe that earlier he mentioned that it was the same color as when he got it, unless I misread. If he is starting to act better maybe he was just stressed from the initial move. He does look quite pale in color than he should. Maybe he was having a hard time at the LFS. How big of a tank was he in? Keep an eye on him, I don't see any obvious signs of ICH from the picture.
The top photo looks like the spots are raised. Are they raised little bumpy areas? Or just darker colors on his skin?
Hi.
thanks again for all you help. He's the same colour as when i got him. (wish i'd researched before hand his proper colours, i saw him in the shop and wanted to take him home.)He was in a standard very small tank in the shop. To me he looks malnutritioned. The darker areas aren't reaised, they just look like blemishes and if anything i think they look more indented.All my other fish are leaving him alone. He's still scratching a bit.
What does the garlic do? Will it effect my other fish if they eat the food with it on?
Sian
Garlic is a good supplement for the fishes diet. It is healthy for all fish. It contains vitamins and nutrients good for the fish. Grins can probably elaborate more in detail.
Your fish is pretty good size and I can imagine it was rather stressed being in such a small tank in the LFS. Not to mention the stress of the move from where it came from before that. Several LFS's around here don't feed them properly either.
Hopefully it pulls through.
hi.
Maybe in this piccie you can see the markings better. I do think there's more darker markings than there was before. He feeds mostly off the ground and grazes on the algae on my live rocks so i don't know if he'd get any. Do i just press the garlic and collect the juice?How much do i need?
Thanks again.
Sian
Reefscape
10-31-2007, 3:33 PM
if you use raw garlic to extract the juice from, you dont need to use that much, just enough to lightly soak over the feed..
Niko
Take a look at the last letter on this page: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/tangdisfaq8.htm
Hi there.
Thats exactly what my tang looks like. Thanks for the help. Unfortunately they don't know whats wrong wrong with it so it doesn't help me much. Would you quarantine it or do you think this will cause it more stress?
Sian
I'd make sure it was eating enough marine greens by providing nori on a clip and supplementing that with Ocean Nutrition formula II if you don't have a lot of algae already growing on the rocks. In fact I'd probably feed that for a bit anyhow and soak it with garlic and or Selcon. I'd also keep the water parameters as close to perfect as you can. And then I'd just keep an eye on him and see if there is any change. From the looks of the tang in the photo at WWM it doesn't look to be a parasite but...the scratching you've mentioned does sound like it so I'm not feeling real strongly in either direction as to what you're dealing with..a nutritional definciency or a parasite.