Yellow eye kole tang not eating/breathing heavy.

Got this on 3/10. It has been working on my Algae and pecking away, however I have not witnessed it eating mysis shrimp when I feed. Yesterday I noticed it was breathing heavy but still moving, today it is still breathing heavy. It was swimming around, pecking on rocks but now starting yesterday it is not and is wedge near it's rock breathing heavy. I tried to spot feed it mysis shrimp right infront of it's face however it did not even move to try and grab it. What should I do? I also noticed that I only had 3 fire fish out, upon looking around the tank it looks like my cleanup crew was eating away on what was left of a firefish. I currently only see two right now.

0 AMM/NITRATE/NITRITE
1.025 salinity

recent changes: temp from 80 to 78
dosed 80ml of alk yesterday to bring it up from 7.7 to 9.1
Dosed PH Buffer to bring PH up to 8.2 (today, after I saw symptoms)

Tank mates:
2x cleaner shrimp
1x 6 line wrasse (added today)
4 firefish (but now only 3 as of today, however I do not see 3 currently only 2)
Torch coral
Hammer coral
Mushroom
Toadstool
Green star polyps (added today)

75 gallon tank with 30 gallon sump. Skimmer always running and MP10W ES always circulating.

It's making me pretty frustrated as I have kept up on testing 100% and my corals are doing great, the shrimp are doing great, but those fish..I guess sometimes they just don't make the switch well or what? What should I do for the tang? I was thinking about trying blood worms soaked in selcon tomorrow or tonight.

 

you could try the blood worms but I don't think there's anything you can do. I've had such a difficult time keeping kole tangs - mine did pretty much the same thing - stopped eating and kind of hid, it wasn't breathing heavy though - I would put some more movement at the top of your water to make sure your water is oxygenated (if that's the word) - sometimes breathing heavy can be a sign of low oxygen - good luck, I hope he pulls through for you. I'm sorry to hear about the firefish

 

So I looked again and he was laying on the sand, I've removed him and placed him in a 1 gallon bucket. I don't think Oxygen is a problem given I have a sump and skimmer going. Could this be something internal? No visible marks on his body. Tried to feed him a bloodworm/nori/brine shrimp/emerald entree mix and still no dice.

 

Yep, I guess the stress of being put in the 1 gallon killed him finally. I took him out and laid him infront of a bright light and inspected the body after he died and researched online, I couldn't come to a conclusion that it was any type of visible disease. It just strikes me odd I had one dead firefish, potentially two, and one dead kole tang that was happily eating GHA algae...hmm.

 

This is why I much prefer corals. Their pretty much straight forward if you know what's going on. People use to see my old 85g & say its loaded with coral but only a handful of small fish. Got my first fish today with ich & I'm about over the idea of fish. Ha

 

lol, the cost of growing coral verse fish? I'd say coral is 100 times more expensive and time consuming

 

And here I thought it was supposed to be that way.

I am with reefer Bob.

Who does not like to agonize over every millimeter of growth.

 

lol, me, i like things that move and entertain, something with personalities. but to each there own

 

Corals can be pricey. But they can easily recoupe their money back just in growth. I will have a few fish that I'm really gonna like. But I've always loved the small details in reef tanks. If 2 corals won't get along, I can just move one & it's over. You can't make a fish stay in his corner lol. If a coral out grows my tank, I can propagate him. Can't cut a fish in half. Ha.
Sorry to take your thread off point. Sorry about your fish.

 

Sounds to me like you are doing too much.Constantly tinkering with the tank/parameters is almost worse then not maintaining the tank at all.Making drastic changes to salinity,PH, Calcium,Alk., etc. is not the goal here.Stability is.