How dangerous can the sting of a blue tang be

[Sqasnatch]

My blue stergeon tang is about 7 inches long now and recently he has been swimming around wacking everything with its tail. The spike is like half an inch long now. And i am getting the weird feeling he's gonna get me. So how dangerous is the venom in there, also I'm allergic to fish, could this be fatal

 

[scottayy]

I'll be interested to read the results on this. I didn't know they stung.. only thought they slashed.

 

[FTMMWS]

I never heard of them being venomous
The are called "surgeon" fish because of the scalpel on the tail,,they will cut you but they are not venomous ,,as far as i ever knew

 

[crister13]

I've never heard of venom either.

 

[scottayy]

I just googled and read that the flesh of the blue tang is poisonous, but the barb itself does not have any associated venom.

As far as being allergic to fish do you mean eating fish, or handling them, or both?

 

[Sqasnatch]

Ok, I thought they did have venom. So that's good to know. I am allergic to eat them or clean, minor reaction to handling.

 

[scottayy]

Can never be too safe. I would wear gloves anytime my hands were in the water, just in case.

 

[Buffy]

Yep wear thick gloves so you do lose a finger. I'm not sure I want a tang now. LOL

 

[Sqasnatch]

He's still the most entertaining fish in my tank, sometimes when I forget to close the top and someone walks by the tank he will splash them. He can splash pretty good. Just seems to be getting aggressive when it comes to feeding time. He attacks the veggie click with his spike everyday, now the skin has come off one of the spikes and you can see how sharp it is, very intimidating

 

[Squidy07]

post a picture I wud love to see this huge tang

 

[Starchar]

If you are allergic to fish to the point of a reaction from handling them I would take great efforts if I were you to avoid being slashed/poisoned.

 

[Sqasnatch]

I'll post a pic tonight