unexplained death

[ellisz]

Well,

I have had my newest fish in my display tank for almost 2 weeks. My yellow tang lived in a quasi QT tank for almost 6 weeks and the 3 chromis lived in there for close to 2 months.

I did a 10 gal water change last night while suctioning out the red slime that is a problem. I added RO water for the first time with this change as well. The tang has been eating great and has had great color but I noticed today that his belly looked shrunken in and he was struggling a bit. When I got home tonight, he was on the bottom dead with a host of scavengers upon him. I removed him immediately.

Anyway, I am a bit dumbfounded by this loss. I alternate feedings with formula 1 & 2 and marine cusine every other night. I also clip a small slip of green or red algae for the tang. He always ate voraciously and swam alot. Other than his shrunken stomach, he looked great.

My other fish, 3 chromis, 2 damsels and a perc. clown are acting as normal and my star polyps, xenia, mushrooms, etc are doing great too. If this was a water quality issue, would not the corals show signs of this first?

This is the one fish that I really want to have but seem to have trouble with

 

[Dewey]

Well tangs use alot of energy i was told that they need to be feed two to three times aday.



Dewey

 

[pecan2phat]

Don't feel so bad, I now have a Sohol & Blonde Naso Tang for the last 2 years that are doing well but for the last 20 + years of marine fish keeping, I also have not been successful in keeping the quite common Yellow Tang.
Books & reference manuals will tell you that they need a lot of vegetable based material and are relatively easy to keep. The many that I have tried have always eaten like pigs and would eventually get the sunken stomach look and perish. I've pretty much stayed away from them for the last 5-7 years.

 

[Hara]

possibly a cyanide caught fish. Tangs, in general, are relatively easy keepers as long as they have a decent supply of veggie matter. All of mine eat meat every night as well.

 

[KLN]

I had the same thing happen. And the lfs tank of yellow tangs were I got mine were all going at about the same time. My water quality is perfect. Who knows?

 

[ellisz]

As for feeding, should I have kept some kind of algae sheet in there at all times? I usually fed a small sheet every other day but as of late, I had been putting one in every evening.

I did notice that he did a great job of cleaning the hair algae of my LR. I had a nice big tuff that did not last 5 minutes after I removed the red algae off the top of it.

Maybe I will try a differnt LFS to get another one.

Thanks