Sick powder blue tang

[Grantjaz]

Can someone please help me? I woke up to him like this, he’s losing his colour and hardly moving, he does get up to swim round. It not sure what’s happened to him. My waters tested fine and he’s eating great

[Aiken Drum]

Im sorry, i dont know very much at all about marine stuff, so any advice i gave could do more harm than good. But could you give a little more information please, so when one of the saltwater guys looks at it they have something to go on. Some of it may not be relevant, im just cutting and pasting the questions from the SW sick fish sticky.

How long have you had the fish? Do you know if it was wild caught, or tank raised?

How long has the fish been in the tank? What are the tank mates? Any aggression?

Is the fish eating? If so what does it eat?

What are the water parameters? pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, SPG? (actual numbers please: posting high, average or normal is not helpful) What saltwater test kit are you using?

Is the fish showing any physical signs of disease, grain of salt size spots, discoloration, ragged fins, misting or spots on the fins, cuts, cloudy eyes, etc?

Is the fish "flashing" (scratching or rubbing on rocks, decorations or substrate)?

How is the fish acting? Is it swimming around, or just hovering in one spot or corner of the tank?

Did you use quarantine? If so for how long and did you have a need to treat for any ailments? Is it in*qt*now? Are you currently treating with any medication(s)?

Describe in detail how the fish was acclimated.

What size system? What type of filtration do you use? Do you have any live rock or sand?

Do you use any additives? Have you used any sort of meds in the main tank?

[melosu58]

All good questions.

[bribo12]

The milky color of his skin makes me think velvet. But yeah good questions by Aiken. A lot more info needed. Powder blues are not an easy fish by any means.
Tank size?
In quarantine?
Tankmates?
When was it added?
How olds the tank?
Parameters (ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, salinity, temp?)
Fts?

[Dary421]

Powder blues are my favorite saltwater aquarium fish ( as my thread states a zillion times ) ,…they are without a doubt a beautiful addition to a very large aquarium but as Bribo stated they are NOT A EASY FISH TO KEEP ! I know this all too well ,I’ve have multiple attempts before finally successfully keeping the one I have now.
They are extremely vulnerable to a wide variety of diseases and tank conditions etc the questions asked by Aiken were right on ,….unfortunately,I think your little guy is pretty much goner .
I’m not sure if it’s the beauty of the fish itself or the challenge of trying to keep such a fish that keeps me striving to be successful with them but it’s one of my main aquarium challenges.
Good luck with not only this pbt but with the your tank in the future.

[melosu58]

Tangs are my favorite fish to keep. As mentioned though there are some that are harder than others to keep. The powder blue Tang is a hard and difficult fish unless you have a very large tank and I'm talking about like 125 gallons or more. I'm sorry about what happened to yours.