Ugh... help, Tang died in under 24 hours?

Hey guys,

Any suggestions for keeping a blue hippo tang? I picked one up at my LFS, which I had seen had been healthy for a couple of weeks, no ick problems, etc.

I floated him in the bag for 30 mins and drip acclimated as well. My water parameters are good, no ammonia or nitrites, very very low nitrates possibly. My PH looked good as well. Got him in my tank, he looked like he was breathing heavily for a bit but I assumed he was just stressed out.

I have a pair of clowns and a six-line wrasse, both of which didn't seem to bother him much. I also have a large long-spine sea urchin. He stayed mostly near the top of the tank, and then late last night I found him laying on the bottom of the tank on his side. He bit the dust about an hour or two later, less than 24 hours after I bought him.

I'm pretty frustrated, this is the first fish I've killed, and with epic failure. I've been doing saltwater for about 6 months now. My tank has T5's, I've got lots of good algae for the tang to eat, I saw him pick at some in his short tenure. Hahaha.

I guess I could use some advice for the next one. Should I set up a quarantine tank and treat him over six weeks with hypo? Any suggestions will most certainly help. Do you think it's because I don't have a protein skimmer? Is that a must have for this type of fish? He was very small, only about 1 3/4" head to tip of tail.

Thanks for any input,

Drew

 

what size tank do you have? did you observe him before buying him for any signs of illness?

 

Well, if your parameters are good such as ammonia and nitrates and nitrites, and you do at least weekly changes you should slip by. But yes, the protein skimmer would help a ton!

 

even no protein skimmer for such a large fish would not afect him that fast, as he did not have much time to impact the bio load

 

I would suggest shorter acclimation for fish. Especially tangs. Tang are huge O2 vacuums. It's possible the lack of O2 in the bag could have stressed the fish
typically when a fish is placed in the bag there is a limited amount of O2. As the fish breaths the O2 is consumed and the PH of the water starts to drop. When the bag is opened there is an initial rush of O2 that spikes the PH.
Once I adopted the technique of floating for 20min then straight in to the Tank. My fish mortality dropped significantly

J

 

I went and measured his dead corpse, haha, he was only 1 3/4" head to tail. I edited this up top. Since he was so small I had put him in my 29g tank, as this is the one I bought when starting the hobby. I know this is a general no-no for a tang, as this is rather small, but I've intended to upgrade to a 55g or bigger soon and thought it would be a safe call for now while he was still so tiny.

* Also, like I said, I've seen this fish for a few weeks at my LFS, and he didn't appear to have any signs of illness in this time period. Probably like a three week period. I did acclimate about 30 min, before placing into tank.

 

that is still small for even a baby tang, and an upgrade to 55 is not much a help, at leaast 100. sorry for your loss.

 

So you dont drip acclimate anymore? well for fish that is? interesting.

 

That's my technique, I'm sure there are other methods.
I drip for inverts

J

 

hen acclimation most likely did him in.