tang swimming head down help

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melellaquarist

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Jun 26, 2009
Messages
23
I woke up this morning to find my tang swimming with his tail up and his head down. He keeps going down in a repeating motion. Its acting like it vant reach the bottom, and he is going in circles. What is this and can I fix it.
 
Test your water params and rule that out first. It could be anything from an intestinal blockage, a parasite infection, bacterial infection or swimmer bladder disease. Even just a goofy acting tang....

If you fear disease I would move to QT as soon as possible, further diagnose and begin treatment there.

IMO
 
All my water levels are normal except the nitrates are a little high. How do i figure out if its parasites, bladder problems etc. Are these treatable.
 
All treatable I believe though diagnosis will be difficult. Has he been eating? Getting lots of veggies? Is his stomach bloated or sunken?

Are you testing for things outside of PH, Amm, Nitrite, Nitrate. What's a little high? >40 ? and what's normal?
 
He has been eating, even while acting like this. He gets plenty of dried seaweed sheets, and i also feed him formula 2 and spectrum. He occasionally eats meatier foods such as mysis and brine shrimp. his belly is not sunken, He looks fat and healthy to me but he could be bloated. The nitrates are at ten and as we speak I am changing about 30 gallons of water in the tank. (75 gallon tank). Nitrates are usually at 0.
 
I seriously doubt nitrates at 10 are an issue, this is coming from someone how routinely hovers in the 30-40 range. Delicate question but how's the poo looking? Getting above my pay grade here.. Never had an internal fish issue before.
 
Well, if it's an 'internal' issue, it will sometimes manifest itself through a variation in that area if you get my drift. Break out the rubber gloves Doctor, you're going in !
 
Well after my large water change, the tang seems to be swimming more horizontally than vertically. I still believe that he is not completely better yet, since he still seems to be a tad off balance. I think if i keep doing water changes once a day he will get better, but I am still open to all advice so dont be shy.
 
I would still go with the whole QT tank thing. Figure out whats wrong with him. Dont let it go because is you just pass it off, it could mean the death of him later on.
 
I would go with the swim bladder. When that acts up their is all kind of swimming problems. Upside down, side to side and all kind of messed up swimming motions. Google swim bladder
 
Well now my tang is normal again and his stomach deflated from when he was having swimming problems. I read up on swim bladder and they said to feed the fish frozen peas (natural laxative) and if it returns to treat it with medicine. Only problem is idk what medicine to treat it with. Does anyone know?
 
I`ve always heard making water as pristine as possible will usually cure over time.
 
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