How salinity reached 10.35 and after effects on new Tang

karsie · Feb 9, 2023

Hi all, so after lurking, doubting and waiting I decided to post my first Thread with somewhat of a "dumb" story and looking for some guidance.

Since a couple of week I have been running a C02 scrubber with insane Coral growth as effect, this increased growth rath made me up my daily dosing by 8 fold. Which of course in retrospect also Increased my salinity creep by a whole lot, which I did not account for. So when I was doing my water change I noticed the viscosity being way off between my mix and the tank.

This made nervous and inmediatly check the salt level of the tank. Which I in the moment misread as 1.023 (it was actually 1.032). So I quickly grabbed some salt and over the course of an hour increased it to what i thought was 1.025, but after finally "calming" down and thought to fixed to problem checkt the salinity once more and to my surprise it was not 1.025 but 1.035. So I totally misread the reading in the heat of the moment, now the true stress kicks in.

Over the course of 6 hours I brought it down to 1.027 and after that used my skimmer to overskim in 12 hours to 1.025. After that waited a day and everything seemed happy, all corals where fine including my Acrepora and the fish did not seem to mind however....

Two days ago I saw my White Tail Kole Tang sometimes swiming with a bit of an angle when it wanted to swim fast and inmediatly thought his swim bladder must be damaged from my stupid mistake. I can not see any white spots on the body and he is eating just fine both from the rocks and mysis. This makes me think that it is no general dissease.

Video of tang being weird:

9 februari 2023

youtube.com

Video 5min later of tang being normal again:

Where are now on day three since first noticing the tang swimming sideways.

TLDR: Salinity went up to 1.035 and brought it down to 1.025 in 6 hours, now after 5 days my new White Tail Kole Tang sometimes has a little bit of trouble staying in balance. Still eats like a maniac and numbs the rocks as if nothing is going on, only when it wants to swim quickly it goes sideways a bit and loses balance. I can't see any white spots small or large on his body and vins, breathing seems normal although. What can/should I do?

Is there anything I can do, is my judgement thnking it being a damaged swimbladder false, or should I just wait out?

Thanks in advance!

MnFish1 · Feb 9, 2023

karsie said:
Hi all, so after lurking, doubting and waiting I decided to post my first Thread with somewhat of a "dumb" story and looking for some guidance.

Since a couple of week I have been running a C02 scrubber with insane Coral growth as effect, this increased growth rath made me up my daily dosing by 8 fold. Which of course in retrospect also Increased my salinity creep by a whole lot, which I did not account for. So when I was doing my water change I noticed the viscosity being way off between my mix and the tank.

This made nervous and inmediatly check the salt level of the tank. Which I in the moment misread as 1.023 (it was actually 1.032). So I quickly grabbed some salt and over the course of an hour increased it to what i thought was 1.025, but after finally "calming" down and thought to fixed to problem checkt the salinity once more and to my surprise it was not 1.025 but 1.035. So I totally misread the reading in the heat of the moment, now the true stress kicks in.

Over the course of 6 hours I brought it down to 1.027 and after that used my skimmer to overskim in 12 hours to 1.025. After that waited a day and everything seemed happy, all corals where fine including my Acrepora and the fish did not seem to mind however....

Two days ago I saw my White Tail Kole Tang sometimes swiming with a bit of an angle when it wanted to swim fast and inmediatly thought his swim bladder must be damaged from my stupid mistake. I can not see any white spots on the body and he is eating just fine both from the rocks and mysis. This makes me think that it is no general dissease.

Video of tang being weird:

9 februari 2023

youtube.com

Video 5min later of tang being normal again:

Where are now on day three since first noticing the tang swimming sideways.

TLDR: Salinity went up to 1.035 and brought it down to 1.025 in 6 hours, now after 5 days my new White Tail Kole Tang sometimes has a little bit of trouble staying in balance. Still eats like a maniac and numbs the rocks as if nothing is going on, only when it wants to swim quickly it goes sideways a bit and loses balance. I can't see any white spots small or large on his body and vins, breathing seems normal although. What can/should I do?

Is there anything I can do, is my judgement thnking it being a damaged swimbladder false, or should I just wait out?

Thanks in advance!

Rapid changes in salinity can cause neurologic type symptoms. IMHO- it might have been better - if you had decreased the salinity more slowly. over days rather than 6 hours. I would watch it - ie not treat for swim bladder disease with antibiotics, etc.

Jay Hemdal · Feb 9, 2023

karsie said:
Hi all, so after lurking, doubting and waiting I decided to post my first Thread with somewhat of a "dumb" story and looking for some guidance.

Since a couple of week I have been running a C02 scrubber with insane Coral growth as effect, this increased growth rath made me up my daily dosing by 8 fold. Which of course in retrospect also Increased my salinity creep by a whole lot, which I did not account for. So when I was doing my water change I noticed the viscosity being way off between my mix and the tank.

This made nervous and inmediatly check the salt level of the tank. Which I in the moment misread as 1.023 (it was actually 1.032). So I quickly grabbed some salt and over the course of an hour increased it to what i thought was 1.025, but after finally "calming" down and thought to fixed to problem checkt the salinity once more and to my surprise it was not 1.025 but 1.035. So I totally misread the reading in the heat of the moment, now the true stress kicks in.

Over the course of 6 hours I brought it down to 1.027 and after that used my skimmer to overskim in 12 hours to 1.025. After that waited a day and everything seemed happy, all corals where fine including my Acrepora and the fish did not seem to mind however....

Two days ago I saw my White Tail Kole Tang sometimes swiming with a bit of an angle when it wanted to swim fast and inmediatly thought his swim bladder must be damaged from my stupid mistake. I can not see any white spots on the body and he is eating just fine both from the rocks and mysis. This makes me think that it is no general dissease.

Video of tang being weird:

9 februari 2023

youtube.com

Video 5min later of tang being normal again:

Where are now on day three since first noticing the tang swimming sideways.

TLDR: Salinity went up to 1.035 and brought it down to 1.025 in 6 hours, now after 5 days my new White Tail Kole Tang sometimes has a little bit of trouble staying in balance. Still eats like a maniac and numbs the rocks as if nothing is going on, only when it wants to swim quickly it goes sideways a bit and loses balance. I can't see any white spots small or large on his body and vins, breathing seems normal although. What can/should I do?

Is there anything I can do, is my judgement thnking it being a damaged swimbladder false, or should I just wait out?

Thanks in advance!

That doesn't look like a swim bladder issue to me. I also wonder if it is even related to the high specific gravity/salt level issue since it started 3 days later?

I've never exposed tangs to a specific gravity that high, but I'm struggling to think of why that would cause issues like this, especially with none of the other animals acting abnormal.

Jay

vetteguy53081 · Feb 9, 2023

If I recall from a dealer seminar several years ago, Fish have an internal salinity tolerance but High salinity can impose stress on them and encourage swim bladder inflation as well as contributing to increased stress and reduce levels of dissolved oxygen. I dont think salt would have an impact on nor recall any neurological effects.

karsie · Feb 9, 2023

MnFish1 said:
Rapid changes in salinity can cause neurologic type symptoms. IMHO- it might have been better - if you had decreased the salinity more slowly. over days rather than 6 hours. I would watch it - ie not treat for swim bladder disease with antibiotics, etc.

Thanks, I also agree on the part that it seems neurological because the behaviour only shows when the tang is trying to do certain moves on higher swim speed. And yeah I knew it was a risk going on the salinity but thought 1.035 was going to cause major issues within hours.

karsie · Feb 9, 2023

Jay Hemdal said:
That doesn't look like a swim bladder issue to me. I also wonder if it is even related to the high specific gravity/salt level issue since it started 3 days later?

I've never exposed tangs to a specific gravity that high, but I'm struggling to think of why that would cause issues like this, especially with none of the other animals acting abnormal.

Jay

Well the tang was only introduced a couple of weeks earlier and I think I already introduced it in 1.032 salinity which gave it a big shock already, so going down in the same period was maybe to much and caused damage?

MnFish1 · Feb 9, 2023

In humans - a change in the extracellular sodium - can cause significant /deadly consequences. I'm not sure why it would be different in fish. IMHO - its the salinity changes causing the problem.

karsie · Feb 9, 2023

MnFish1 said:
In humans - a change in the extracellular sodium - can cause significant /deadly consequences. I'm not sure why it would be different in fish. IMHO - its the salinity changes causing the problem.

Agreed, I will keep monitoring the tang and report back. Its seems that the situation is stabilizing/improving somewhat day by day. I also forgot to mention it also looks like the tang is a little bit negatively buoyant.