Possible Sick Blue Eye Tang. Please anyone give advice before it is to late!

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88flaminchevy

Aquarium Advice Newbie
Joined
Sep 7, 2011
Messages
3
Hey Guys,

I've got a 4" Blue Eye Tang that has just recently started breathing really fast. I've had him for about a month and a half and he's been perfectly fine up until yesterday. He's swimming fine, eating good and not really showing any other symptoms of disease beside the breathing. He's always been a little bit shy and a lite sleeper. In the past few weeks he's been getting less shy, sleeping more and is now finally coming up to the glass so I can check him out. I've looked for any sign's of Ick or parasites and I really don't see anything on him. He looks perfectly healthy. His colors are good, fins look good and eyes aren't cloudy. I put a rock in the tank daily that in wrapped in brown algae and he will hang out around it nearly all day pecking at it with my Naso and Lawnmower blenny. I do not have a quarantine tank so none of my livestock is quarantined before introduced into the tank. He was the last fish we've put into the tank and none of the other fish have been sick or died in over 3 months.

Does anyone have any advice? I'm hoping I can do something for him now before it get worse!

Thanks!!
 
Welcome to the forum!

Have you checked your water parameters? ie: ammonia, nitrites and nitrates?

I wish I ha more to suggest but I'm by far no expert in these things.
:-D
 
Hello,

Thank you for responding. Yes, ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10-15, Phosphate 0, Alkalinity 10. PH is at 8.0 which is a bit low, but we've had the house closed up for a few days with the AC on. PH should rebound when we open the windows back up. Temp in the tank is 78 deg
 
All sounds spot on. :) The only other thing I can think of is aeration and oxygen levels in the tank. The closed up house could be accounting for this change in behavior. I keep my house closed up as I live in Florida and need the a/c on 24/7 usually and I know it can affect Ph but not sure about the oxygen. Did his rapid breathing start around the time you closed up and set the a/c on?
 
Ya, we closed up the house on Monday and the rapid breathing started yesterday. PH was at 8.1 when the house was open and dropped to 7.9-8.0 when we closed up the house. I'm wondering if I buffer the PH back up to 8.4 or so if the O2 in the water will increase.
 
Or you could increase the top of the water circulation, get more oxygen into the water. Maybe aim your powerheads up a bit more. I;m sure now that they are related as it occurred at the same time pretty much. I try to air out my house one day a week to counter the stale air I have due to my air conditioning.

A neat trick is to take a cup of tank water and aerate it with an airstone in the house for an hour. Check the ph. The do the same thing but have it aerating out side the house. Check the ph. If the ph goes up in the house you need more circulation, if it goes up after being outside for an hour or so with the airstone then it's co2 exchange issues within the house.

LOL I feel like mr wizard. hehe but it did work for me trying to pin down my ph drop.
 
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