sick Tang

[claysey]

Yesterday morning, my yellow tang was swimming around just fine. Later on, around noon, I noticed him hovering nose down just above the sand. I fed as I always do and he just stayed there hovering. If a piece of food happened to float by he would eat it but he didn't actively go after the food as he has in the past.
I have had this tang for about a year now along with a Niger Trigger and a hawk fish. I have a few soft corals also. My tank is a 130 gal with about 100 lbs of live rock and a 4 to 5 inch DSB.
The tank parameters are as they should be. I change 10 gal of water a week with distilled water. (I bought a large restaurant quality distiller. I do not buy distilled water from a store.) The tank is about a year and a half old. I have been fighting with an outbreak of red slime lately. I am not sure what brought that on. Could this be whats wrong with my tang?
Any help would be great.

Clayton

 

[steve-s]

Any signs of outward trauma, discoloration or rapid/laboured breathing? What kinds of soft corals do you have and have you ever seen the tang nip at them? Believe it or not that is quite normal. Any anemones?

From the info provided, I do not see anything that might be the cause.

Cheers
Steve

 

[claysey]

I have some Xenia, Green Star Polyps, Yelow Polyps, a Flower Anemone, some Green Alveopora, some Zooanthid Polyps, some green mushrooms and a Short tentacled Plate Coral.
I have never seen the tang nip at any corals. I feed Seaweed Selects dried seaweed and varius frozen foods every other day.
The only outward signs I see is its left fin is chewed a little bit and it kinda has a pot belly.


Clayton

 

[Brisc0]

Do you have a large ammount of micro bubbles? Could have sucked some down and threw his swim bladder out of whack.

 

[steve-s]

Does the fish seemed "dazed" almost like it's not aware of it's surroundings. Also does the body look abnormally curved or bent?

Cheers
Steve

 

[claysey]

Well, I am sorry to say he died this past Sat. I don't have any microbubbles. I did notice that he had quite a bulge in the tummy area. As I posted earlier, I also have an outbreak of Red Slime. I think he might have got a hold of some of it and that is what did him in. I don't really know for sure. I am currently persuing the red slime problem now before I purchase any replacement fish.
On a similar note, does anyone know if distilling water removes phosphates? I think the phosphates in my tank are high. I have a test kit that is kinda hard to read, but I believe it is saying my phosphates are .1. If this is true, that is a problem.


Thanks,
Clayton