Lester Verano
Community Member
- Joined
- Jul 13, 2019
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I've now been in the saltwater aquarium hobby for approximately 4 months, and have NEVER owned an aquarium before this. In this 4 month time I've now lost my second tang fish. SO, minus $110.00 all together. I originally purchased 2 damsels, a cinnamon clown, and an all purple dotty back pseudochromis. All the original fish are alive and well. Please read on, and hear my story.
I found an unbelievable powder brown tang that appeared to show no signs of illness. Since I choose not to do quarantine, since I don't have the means to do it proper anyway, I at least try my best to purchase fish that look as healthy as possible. Long story short, I'm a newbie, and I didn't acclimate the fish, and it died in under a week with no visible signs of sickness other than it layed down and died. The aquarium store told me it was probably shock from the salinity jump from 1.019 in the pet store to 1.025 in my tank. Lesson learned. I watched it gasp for air at the bottom of my tank and then my beautiful powder brown tang died. I was devastated, but I chose to learn from it. The end.
Before any members of the forum begin with me a lecture on quarantine and acclimation importance, please be advised I am new, but I am well read on many basics in the hobby. I agree with doing quarantine, and now of course I see how important acclimation is too, but with all that said, I would appreciate if we could stay on the topic I'm about to expound upon here.
I was discouraged about tangs after the powder brown tang died, but wasn't willing to give up on tangs. I did a little research and decided the hardiest tang I could get was the Yellow Eyed Kole Tang. Ok, now, before I go any further:
Alkalinity good range
PH good range
Temperature 77.5 to 83.5 swing (got a fan, so now only goes up to about 82 on a hot day)
Salinity 1.024 to 1.025
Ammonia zero
Phosphates zero
Nitrates approximately 20 to 30 PPM (working on this, just added matrix, heard good things about it)
Calcium approximately 400, I use purple up, and it's the only thing I add to my tank and it keeps my calcium high.
So after I had gotten over the loss of my powder brown tang I got my confidence back up to buy a Yellow Eye Kole Tang. At the store the fish looked healthy with no signs of illness whatsoever, and none of the fish in the tank I got the Kole tang out of looked ill either. I brought the kole home, acclimated him for a half hour with a drip, and added him to the tank. within a week every fish in my tank had parasites and sunken belly. PAUSE right here: Lesson number two learned; always dip or do SOMETHING before adding a new fish to your tank. Ok, moving on. So I removed all my carbon and treated my 55 gallon Oceanic with General Cure API over 4 days and cured everything with all of my fish except the Kole Tang. The kole still did not look right.
I called the pet store at the onset of my Kole tang getting sick, and yet before any of my other fish started showing signs of parasites. I described to the person on the other end of the line that my kole tang had a big white spot on the side of his body. It did not look like ICH, because it was located in just one area about the size of a small finger print. It looked like it had scratches in it, but mostly looked like a pale white patch. Later I started to see white coming in through the face, and later when the symptoms were at their worst I could see a very big white spot underneath the front belly fin getting very pale. You can still see that white spot in the first of the dead fish pics below. The 18 to 20 something fish store guy, who probably forgot more about this hobby in his young life than I will probably ever know said it was parasites. He was right, but I don't know how all the way right he was.
By the time the Kole tangs symptoms were at their worst all my other fish started showing sunken belly, and I could actually see parasites coming out of my pseudochromis. My General Cure API had just arrived in the mail and so I started treatment.
Now I've already mentioned above that all the fish got better after the General Cure API treatment, but the Kole tang still wasn't quite right. What I meant by that is, the kole tangs white spots were improved, but not gone. I then started feeding all the fish medicated pellets made for battling parasites, just for good measure, and the kole tang started to look even better after only a day or two of feeding the pellets. Things seemed like they were going back to normal, and so I turned my skimmer back on and placed the carbon back in my canister filter so we all could get on with our lives. And 4 days after this my beloved Yellow Eyed $65.00 Kole Tang is dead long before he had his VISA worked off.
So about Two days ago, prior to the time of this post, I noticed my Kole tang gets this outbreak of ICH like spots all over his body, but yet it did not look like the actual photos of ICH that I've seen in my fish studies. The spots on my tang looked like he had very very tiny micro air bubbles all over him. He went from being active and eating seaweed and pellets like a hog, to being absolutely not interested in food and covered with these micro bubble looking specs all over him overnight. I figured I had time to deal with this, so I ordered up some Furan-2, thinking this was bacterial. None of my other fish had these symptoms. All my other fish are still looking great, eating great, acting great, everything, but my Yellow Eye Kole Tang is dead, so the $65.00 dollar question is "Why is my Yellow Eyed Kole Tang Dead?".
The span of time it took for this sickness to kill my fish was under two days. I noticed it one day, and the next day I noticed it was getting worse, so I ordered medicine. I got home from work tonight to find my kole tang dead as the library on Saturday night. The pictures attached here are not the best, but you can see that white spot on the belly fin in pic one. That's the biggest piece of evidence I saved. I should of taken a photo while the fish was still dead in the tank, but I could not bare it. I just wanted to get him out of there and get to my computer and start typing.
I hope beginners and seasoned aquarist members of the community forum can learn from this, and maybe teach me something the school of hard knocks left out. Thanks for taking the time to give this a read if you are still here. I love tangs, but form now on I'm sticking with the dirt cheapest hardiest fish I can find for $30.00 dollars and under. No more tangs for me, I'm not ready.
On a final note. I do have an extremely well oxygenated tank. Super surface agitation with a IceCap gets it done. Also, I noticed the last time I saw my tang alive, his face actually looked sunken. I almost wonder if the parasites got him, or maybe velvet?
I found an unbelievable powder brown tang that appeared to show no signs of illness. Since I choose not to do quarantine, since I don't have the means to do it proper anyway, I at least try my best to purchase fish that look as healthy as possible. Long story short, I'm a newbie, and I didn't acclimate the fish, and it died in under a week with no visible signs of sickness other than it layed down and died. The aquarium store told me it was probably shock from the salinity jump from 1.019 in the pet store to 1.025 in my tank. Lesson learned. I watched it gasp for air at the bottom of my tank and then my beautiful powder brown tang died. I was devastated, but I chose to learn from it. The end.
Before any members of the forum begin with me a lecture on quarantine and acclimation importance, please be advised I am new, but I am well read on many basics in the hobby. I agree with doing quarantine, and now of course I see how important acclimation is too, but with all that said, I would appreciate if we could stay on the topic I'm about to expound upon here.
I was discouraged about tangs after the powder brown tang died, but wasn't willing to give up on tangs. I did a little research and decided the hardiest tang I could get was the Yellow Eyed Kole Tang. Ok, now, before I go any further:
Alkalinity good range
PH good range
Temperature 77.5 to 83.5 swing (got a fan, so now only goes up to about 82 on a hot day)
Salinity 1.024 to 1.025
Ammonia zero
Phosphates zero
Nitrates approximately 20 to 30 PPM (working on this, just added matrix, heard good things about it)
Calcium approximately 400, I use purple up, and it's the only thing I add to my tank and it keeps my calcium high.
So after I had gotten over the loss of my powder brown tang I got my confidence back up to buy a Yellow Eye Kole Tang. At the store the fish looked healthy with no signs of illness whatsoever, and none of the fish in the tank I got the Kole tang out of looked ill either. I brought the kole home, acclimated him for a half hour with a drip, and added him to the tank. within a week every fish in my tank had parasites and sunken belly. PAUSE right here: Lesson number two learned; always dip or do SOMETHING before adding a new fish to your tank. Ok, moving on. So I removed all my carbon and treated my 55 gallon Oceanic with General Cure API over 4 days and cured everything with all of my fish except the Kole Tang. The kole still did not look right.
I called the pet store at the onset of my Kole tang getting sick, and yet before any of my other fish started showing signs of parasites. I described to the person on the other end of the line that my kole tang had a big white spot on the side of his body. It did not look like ICH, because it was located in just one area about the size of a small finger print. It looked like it had scratches in it, but mostly looked like a pale white patch. Later I started to see white coming in through the face, and later when the symptoms were at their worst I could see a very big white spot underneath the front belly fin getting very pale. You can still see that white spot in the first of the dead fish pics below. The 18 to 20 something fish store guy, who probably forgot more about this hobby in his young life than I will probably ever know said it was parasites. He was right, but I don't know how all the way right he was.
By the time the Kole tangs symptoms were at their worst all my other fish started showing sunken belly, and I could actually see parasites coming out of my pseudochromis. My General Cure API had just arrived in the mail and so I started treatment.
Now I've already mentioned above that all the fish got better after the General Cure API treatment, but the Kole tang still wasn't quite right. What I meant by that is, the kole tangs white spots were improved, but not gone. I then started feeding all the fish medicated pellets made for battling parasites, just for good measure, and the kole tang started to look even better after only a day or two of feeding the pellets. Things seemed like they were going back to normal, and so I turned my skimmer back on and placed the carbon back in my canister filter so we all could get on with our lives. And 4 days after this my beloved Yellow Eyed $65.00 Kole Tang is dead long before he had his VISA worked off.
So about Two days ago, prior to the time of this post, I noticed my Kole tang gets this outbreak of ICH like spots all over his body, but yet it did not look like the actual photos of ICH that I've seen in my fish studies. The spots on my tang looked like he had very very tiny micro air bubbles all over him. He went from being active and eating seaweed and pellets like a hog, to being absolutely not interested in food and covered with these micro bubble looking specs all over him overnight. I figured I had time to deal with this, so I ordered up some Furan-2, thinking this was bacterial. None of my other fish had these symptoms. All my other fish are still looking great, eating great, acting great, everything, but my Yellow Eye Kole Tang is dead, so the $65.00 dollar question is "Why is my Yellow Eyed Kole Tang Dead?".
The span of time it took for this sickness to kill my fish was under two days. I noticed it one day, and the next day I noticed it was getting worse, so I ordered medicine. I got home from work tonight to find my kole tang dead as the library on Saturday night. The pictures attached here are not the best, but you can see that white spot on the belly fin in pic one. That's the biggest piece of evidence I saved. I should of taken a photo while the fish was still dead in the tank, but I could not bare it. I just wanted to get him out of there and get to my computer and start typing.
I hope beginners and seasoned aquarist members of the community forum can learn from this, and maybe teach me something the school of hard knocks left out. Thanks for taking the time to give this a read if you are still here. I love tangs, but form now on I'm sticking with the dirt cheapest hardiest fish I can find for $30.00 dollars and under. No more tangs for me, I'm not ready.
On a final note. I do have an extremely well oxygenated tank. Super surface agitation with a IceCap gets it done. Also, I noticed the last time I saw my tang alive, his face actually looked sunken. I almost wonder if the parasites got him, or maybe velvet?
Last edited:
It does sound like velvet to me.
