Tangs Keep Dying

How often are you offering seaweed on a clip, or any other foods? When first acclimating to the tank, I tend to overfeed for a few days or until signs of stress subdue. I offer mostly nori sheets (from the supermarket, the sushi making kits, cheaper) and a mix of frozen mysis, sponge, and brine.

Any signs of aggression or territorial behavior from any of the other tankmates to the tangs?

 

you might try a different brand of seaweed to see if they like it better. My Tangs usually attack that stuff. it could be an oxygen problem like stated above. i have read that tangs require more oxygen than the average fish. What forms of aeration do you have?

 

I still believe that the problem is not the food.. Unless it is poisoned, a tang can live a little longer than a few days without "real" food.

Im not saying not to do the drip acclimation.. ( im all up for it).
Im saying that if you are going to do the latter, you must have prime at hand. If not, I believe it is best to not drip acclimate. IMHO.
better a few differences in water, than highly toxic ammonia levels.

 

stay away from powders until you are more experienced, they drop like flies compared to other tangs.

 

I had a similar problem for the longest time I had a 3 day thing.tangs would be fine day 1, day took start going down hill, day 3 die.so u ask how I now have oodles of tangs including an achilies? I started using homemade food and included seachem powder products for parasites and fungal infection aswell as a liquid alae soak, garlic and selcon.as for my recipe I pretty much go to the lfs buy afew of all the frozen foods, buying dubbel brine shrimp and krill and 5x mysis.I chop up a cup or so of silver sides in appropriatly sized chunks ( half pea sized) and put it in a container ( usually a gallon milk jug) and stick it in the fridge for a day or so then pour into ice cube tray freeze and store
I make about a gollons worth such lasts me about 6 months.I do overfeed to keep everyone happy but I have filtration to back it up.ohh also use risk water to thaw and rinse the food .

 

My concern is the order the fish are placed in his tank. He later said the powder blue died and the next day the powder brown died. Unless they were added at the same time they could have stressed each other out. That's my thinking.

 

I wonder why LA doesn't mention prime in their acclimation instructions?

 

I wonder if the fish are coming to you so stressed out that they never get over this stress...

also, I don't think anyone has mentioned stray current, but have you checked for it, and are you running a grounding probe in your tank?

Also, what is the temperature of your tank water?

 

I have learned that lesson 2 sailfin tangs and a hippo tang - the second sail fin lasted 3 weeks.
My first tang died - I am sure due to lack of oxygen at night (have fixed that)
Second tang dies due to fire clowns - sold the fire clown pair to the lfs
hippo - no idea just would not eat - very sad :-(
Now 3 months with a healthy happy yellow tang (last and only tang till the 180gal goes up)

I know I jumped the gun on tangs and did not have the right oxygen levels for the live stock - but I do feel your pain.
I have talked to others that that have had the same issues
powder and browns known to be hard to keep.

 

Sounds to me like they're all just stressed out from the move/acclimation. If they're dying that quickly there's really no other explanation, if all your other fish are fine. I'm sure shipping is hell on fish, especially more delicate ones like tangs. I wouldn't even drip them, bc what your doing definitely isn't working. Try floating the bag. Other than that, a QT would help out. I know you said you don't have room. But all you need is a lil 10 gal or something. I bought mine with filter lights and all at petco for 40 bucks. Doesn't really take up too much space. You could just take it down when your not using it too.