Tang in Trouble

[TheTodd]

In case people have not been following my Hyposalinity in My DT thread, here is a brief recap... I had what I thought was only Ich in my DT. Since the fish were too large and too many to QT, I decided to go with hypo in the DT. Things seemed fine at first, fish had spots, spots cleared, never got any rapid breathing or negative signs that the Ich had done damage. Now, over the last week, I lost a Valentini Puffer. (never showed signs of anything)...a couple days later the Porcupine Puffer died. Both seemed okay prior.

Now my Desjardini, who looked great for about three days, is looking bad. Yesterday, we noticed a white patch around it's lower fin and body. This morning, there are white streaks down the lower fin and the fin almost looks swollen. (not thin like normal, almost puffed up) and one eye is starting to bulge.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm thinking of pulling the Tang into a QT and treating with an anti- bacterial med for the eye, but I am at a loss for the white areas. I've never seen anything like this.

The Huma Huma seems perfectly normal. The Engineer Goby, I am not sure about. It is not where it normally hides, so I can't tell if it is acting up or just relocating .

 

[TheTodd]

Here is a shot of the white streak running down the lower fin...

I'm trying to post a pic of the other side, which is worse and it is not uploading for some reason. Will try later...

 

[Sniperhank]

Lines in tangs, to my knowledge, are signs of stress...with there being new inhabitants coming and others going, might be constant changes or even being bullied in the re-establishment of the pecking order.

 

[TheTodd]

It was pretty much the same fish. No new additions, only deaths. I never saw aggression and it really looked and acted normal.

At any rate, the update as of now is that the Tang is on its side and looks to have little time to live. The Engineer Goby appears to be the same. I had to know, so I moved some rock and it just stayed there and did not even try to go hide.

I've decided that while it seems that the hypo got the Ich, something else is going on that Hypo must not get to. I am going to go read through some disease sites and see if I can narrow it down. It is not striking me as anything common.

The Huma Huma still looks okay, but I decided to move it to one of my holding /QT tanks and start the fallow thing again in the 240g. I am going to raise the salinity in the QT and am considering Cupramine when the salinity is back up. I figure between the hypo and that, most disease should be wiped out if it survives. Considering antibiotics too, since the Tang had the eye suddenly bulging.

Absolutely heartbreaking to loose fish when I can't figure out what is getting them. I've never had issues with diagnosing and treating before, but this is stumping me and I'm not happy about it. Looks like April/May before the 240g will be workable with fish again... I am going to throw some frags in there and at least put it to good use. Got two LED panels for Xmas/birthday, so I'm thinking of getting two more and just going all LED on that and ditching the bedroom reef tank idea for now...

 

[TheTodd]

This is a pic after I pulled it out of the tank. The big white blotchy areas are what concern me. It was not cottony or even like it was on the surface of the skin. If anyone has ideas, please let me know...
Just realized the pic is upside down, so the white was along it's lower area.

 

[Sniperhank]

Well, besides knowing that can't be good, I'm at a loss.

 

[mr_X]

Giving your fish a stress free environment is the best advice I can give. I would have left the fish alone and not treated the ich, but tried to figure out why they got it.

 

[huma-huma]

i could have the completely wrong train of thought here, but after looking at that pic, the first thing that comes to mind is some form of a digestive tract infection. only reason i say that is because it seems to be mainly confined to the ares immediately surrounding the digestive system. then it could of possibly stemmed back further to the tail. again, i dont really have a scientific reasoning behind it, just what i thought was a possibility. so sorry for your loss, losing any fish hurts, even more so with such a gorgeous bigger fish.

 

[TheTodd]

I'm not sure what more I could have done to provide a stress- free environment. 240 gallons should be sufficient, even for a large Tang, as this was. It had lots of live rock with lots of caves/holes. It had it's spot where it would hide at times. It ate like a pig, even up to the night before it died. The Porc, Valentini and Trigger showed absolutely no signs of aggression. Parameters were stable and only at the very end did Nitrates start creeping up, but not even to 80 darkness on the API tests.

I'm thinking that I will go with the 8-10 weeks fallow gameplan, but am also considering the idea of dropping the salinity further to ensure that nothing lives both by that and no hosts. How low can it go before the BB starts to die off? If rather not have to cycle the tank again, but guess I can if need be.

 

[melosu58]

I have to agree with Doug. Doing hypo in your display tank would have killed inverts in the tank.There is alot of them in your LR. This could have caused alot of ammonia. Did you test your water during this time? Also not all fish can handle hypo. The tangs should be ok but I dont know about the others.

 

[TheTodd]

The odd things to me were:

- Those white markings that appeared to not be a fungus or parasite. Internal infection could make sense.

- The morning it died, one eye was starting to bulge. I'm thinking bacterial/infection because the usual. "poor water quality" culprit was not the case, unless hypo counts.

- The lower fin, along it's bottom side, appeared puffy about from the body to about half way down. Could that be swelling from infection?

- The Tang and Engineer Goby died almost exactly the same time, so I'm guessing it's the same issue. The Puffers were a few days ago.

I know they had Ich, but all died after that had cleared up. It seems like two separate things, but possibly the Ich caused more damage than I thought? I'm kinda leaning away from that though, as they all looked good for at least a couple days after their spots had disappeared. They were acting normal, out swimming around, eating fine , no rapid breathing, etc.

 

[TheTodd]

I have to agree with Doug. Doing hypo in your display tank would have killed inverts in the tank.There is alot of them in your LR. This could have caused alot of ammonia. Did you test your water during this time? Also not all fish can handle hypo. The tangs should be ok but I dont know about the others.

I was testing daily...zero ammonia and nitrites.

I'm not sure there were a lot of inverts. No crabs that I have ever seen. I've only ever seen one snail. Never seen any worms of any kind either.

 

[huma-huma]

im still stuck on some form of digestive infection, only thing that wouldnt make sense with that is how the engineer got it, but then again, if the goby is sifting and moving sand around (thats possibly contaminated with feces from the tang), that could explain it.

 

[TheTodd]

I agree. It certainly had been moving sand though. He cleared out sand from underneath about half the live rock.

 

[Gregcoyote]

Engineer gobies are scaleless. The tang has a thin slime coat even when unstressed. In my opinion the immune systems of these fish crashed and bacterial infections did them in. They are the "canaries in the mine." Doug's right, I think your efforts to cure them might have pushed them over the edge. I would certainly consider stress as the potential culprit.