Pale looking fish

[blrrobinson21]

Hello All
I have just got in to the SW hobby. I have a friend who sold me a 110 gal tank that had been up and running for a few years. The tank included 25lbs of lr, 50lbs of sand, 2 tetra filters "i dont know anything about these filters except they hang on the back of the tank and use two bag filters with carbon each." Heaters total of 300wt and fish. The fish include a lipstick "naso?" tang, tomato clown, bi colored angel and two yellow tangs. My tangs are the one in question. They are both eating, swimming fine and not showing any signs of scratching or iching. The problem is their top and bottom fins are messed up. Its almost like their grinded off. One has a point about the height of what the fins are suppose to extend but its like a mountain and looks like bone. The dont even look like fins just shallow jagged edges. Will they grow back? Also they are both pale in color, not a deep yellow like I have seen in pictures. Again they seem happy and get a long great with each other not showing any signs of aggression. The moving of the tank was fairly easy and they yellow tangs looked like this before the move. I would of asked the original owner but wasnt sure about anything at the time and really didnt want to insult him. The water parameters are, salinity 1.023 temp 78.5 amme 0 nitrite 0 nitrate 190 "I know this is high and im doing water changes to get it down" Im using they old dip and watch the color sticks. As far as any other readings I dont have any other tests. Any ideas guys? Thanks for your time.
Brian

 

[blrrobinson21]

Im not sure if this is related or not. I usually shut my lights off about 30 min before I go to bed at night, when I woke up this morning I thought my fish were dying. Both of my yellow tangs were almost white and my naso tang was just laying on the bottom with white bloches all over him. Even the white on his tale had turned grey. About 15 min after I turned on the lights they all started moving again and all the color came back to my naso but the yellows were still pale. Any thoughts guys?

 

[baldyguy]

Not an expert myself but here goes............. I would buy a liquid test kit to check your levels as Trate of 190 is high! It sounds like your Tangs possibly have a disease called 'Fin Rot' which would explain their colour also...... they are not well so not happy and the colour goes also.....just like we do...not well go pale. As for the lighting what lighting are you using..... white, blue or marine spots..... if you turn off the white lights straight away then back on in the morning it will stress your fish. You may need to change/alter your lighting arrangement to replicate the natural environment..... This being moonlight-dawn-daytime-dusk-moonlight..... personally I use timers to do this and the stock will 'sleep' and 'wake up' naturally. Hope this helps. Let us know here how you are getting on.........

 

[Brad.Sedore]

i would really take a water sample to anyone around you that will test for trates... 190 is beyond lethal

 

[melosu58]

My only problem is that I dont think you have enough biological filtration. You should have much more LR than that and those filters are not the greatest. 190 on the nitrates is pretty bad. You are doing PWC`s right? If not you`ll need to do some frequent ones. Get a good test kit and post some more water test results.

 

[Tank2379]

Yeah 190 for Nitrates is Extremely High.... I would be doing PWC for the next few days IMO....

 

[blrrobinson21]

Im doing about 15 gals a week. Although the first week I had it nothing was done. We completely tore the tank down and put it pack up when we moved it. Could that have anything to do with the nitrates?

 

[Brad.Sedore]

how long was the rock out of water... you might be experencing a mini cycle... or a full cycle.

-Brad

 

[blrrobinson21]

We never let the rock get out of water. We transported the water with bags in buckets and put the rock and fish in the bags. The only thing that was out of the water were the CC. Im going to keep up the water changes but Im thinking about taking out the CC and putting sand in. Im hoping that will help with the nitrates.

 

[Brad.Sedore]

did you use R/O DI water to fill your tank or treated tap water?

-Brad

 

[blrrobinson21]

The wayer that I've been doing pwc with is RO water. I'm not sure what my friend used origionally for water. I have more LR on order. I'm also going to change out my CC for sand. Like I said, both tangs were like this when I got them I just didn't know if their fins would grow back.