De-spining tangs?

[bbecher]

Hello all,

I have a problem it seems. I've purchased 2 kole tangs and a mimic tang from the same store, and have had all three die on me. My other fish in the tank are as good as ever and I've never seen any problems with any of them.

Upon closer inspection of the last two tangs that died, their back spines (Scalple's if you will) seems to have been removed (There is just a slit, no spine). This seems to be the only reason leading to the death of these fishes that I can tell (I checkled for Ich constantly).

Has anyone ever heard of this being done to tangs?

 

[austinsdad]

At least now you can check for the scalpel before you bring one home.

Never heard of that before, but I expect they might have shrunk or the bloted dead body enveloped it when they died. Hard to believe someone would take the time to do that.

 

[bbecher]

I vaugley remember, when I bought my first kole from there the salesperson saying something to the effect of "This one looks like it had it's spine removed.." or something close to that. I inspected each fish closely upon pulling it out and ran my finger over there area and it sure did seem like an incision. I've had success with everything but tangs from this store, so I will be avoiding them in the future

 

[melosu58]

I`ve never heard of that before either. They are hard to see on the Kole tang anyway.

 

[bbecher]

I agree, I've looked hard at a few of them and never really been able to pick it out.

Like Austinsdad mentioned perhaps the bodies were mishapin after death, but upon inspection it REALLY did look like is was carved out. Anyways just wanted to see if this had been heard of before. Thanks for the support all!