Yellow Tang going Pale

[pioneer]

My Yellow Tang is starting to loose his colour and go a bit pale. He is still active, alert and feeding well. He is fed Brine Shrimp, home made food, and flake on rotation. The tank also has a regualr supplier of sea weed which he munches down without a secnd thought.

So no obvious reasons, anybody any ideas. The water quality is top notch with nothing out of the ordinary. all the other stock fish and corals doing fine. Confused!.

Cheers

Pioneer

 

[Guest]

Have you seen it scaling any of the other fish? Mine did this with my Coral Beauty and turned very pale. almost white. When the YT finally gashed the side of my CB with the spines in the tail and killed it, The YT is now beautiful again... I think it is something that it is not getting along with in the tank.. This is my opinion, but it could not be the case... I hope your YT is ok... Maybe someone with more experience with YT's can get in on this...

 

[pioneer]

The YT seem OK, I have not seen him falling out with anything else. I have not added an other fish for a while. I have 1 x clown, 1 x Midas Blenny, 1 x Juvenile Flagfine Angel and 1 x Yellow headed sleeper goby. That along with a few crabs, stars and feather dusters is about it.
Seems very odd, I did have my LR coallapse yesterday due to the goby digging for freedom, and while I had noticed the YT going pale before, I wonder if this has stressed it further?.

Pioneer

 

[reefrunner69]

YT's will pale from stress (usually it comes and goes unless under constant stress) and nutrition. It may be that it needs more vegetation in it's diet. Tangs are herbivores that graze all day on the reef, they do not get large meals a few times a day. To know whether stress is a possibility...we need more details about your tank.

 

[pioneer]

Tank is as follows.

125 litre, 20kgs LR, 2" CC bed, fish as above, 2 x sand shifiting stars, 6 x turbo snails, 4 x emerald crabs, 1 x green button polyp, 1 x green mushroom coral. Lighting is 1 x 35w white flourescent, and 1 x 35 watt blue. Lights are on for 7 hours a day (trying to combat hair algae). Ammonia, nitrate and Nitrite all zero, SL = 1.026, temp 28C.
Tank has been established for about 5 months, with YT being in he tanl for about 3.5 months. Water quality has been very stable and I have not had any casualties since setting up.
Anything else you need you know?.

Pioneer

 

[Guest]

What is your ph reading?
Other than that, your parameters look good to me,,the salinity is a bit high for me, I dont' know how much .002 points makes a difference, but I like to keep mine at 1.024 at 82*. I read a bit about them last night and have learned that they are very suseptable to Vitamin C deficiency. On the packages of Nori that I have, they state that it has Vitamin C in it. I am going to go with what ReefRunner69 said and stick to the stress condition. I also read that the When they come down with ICH, they can lose their color. Again though this is stress related.

 

[pioneer]

I checked the Ph this morning and it was between 8.1 and 8.2, which is about normal for me. The salinty has always been between 1.025 and 1.027 (worst case), normally sitting at 1.026.
The nori I use is Sally's Seaweed Salad (Marine Green Algae). It comes from a Company in CA, it does not mention what the vitamin C content is, just that it is 100% natural dried seaweed.
If it is vitamin C, what can I use to get some more of it into its diet?.

With regard to ICH, I have been keeping an eye for this but have not seen anything yet.

Pioneer

 

[reefrunner69]

I have 1 x clown, 1 x Midas Blenny, 1 x Juvenile Flagfine Angel and 1 x Yellow headed sleeper goby.

Add in the yellow tang and (acording to our conversion calc) I think your tank is overcrowded. This would cause a constant stress and cause the fish to pal. Also IMO a YT is to active a fish to keep in a tank of less than 4ft.

For all us yanks 125litres = 33g

 

[pioneer]

OK thanks for the insight, my new 150g tank arrives in 2 weeks, so hopefully he will be able to hang on until I can transfer him in maybe 6 weeks time.

Cheers

Pioneer

 

[PrettyFishies]

About the NORI - what brand is reccomended? And what type of algae does the YT graze on naturally? a pic would help...

 

[Guest]

You can get a few different kinds...LFS usually carries NORI... You can also use Sushi wrap or kelp fromwhat I understand.. YT's graze on basically on any green algae there mouths come across, or at least mine did. I don't remember the brand of algae I used, I am at work and the package is at home...I believe though, it is made by the same company as Formula One...