Strange Sailfin Tang Behaviour

[Alec J]

My sailfin has been exhibiting some odd behaviour for at least a couple months now. I'm not really sure when it started. My main concern is that he is always breathing very rapidly, or at least it seems rapid to me. I watched several dozen videos of sailfin tangs and most of them were breathing noticeably slower. Note that none of my other fish are breathing rapidly like this.

Additionally, he swims into the glass as if he is trying to go through it sometimes, and does some other weird swimming motions. He sometimes does this when I'm not around, but I usually notice it occuring mostly when I am sitting in front of the aquarium...he seems like he is trying to swim towards me. His colour also changes to very pale or very dark for a few minutes sometimes. I thought that he might just be seeing his reflection, but again, none of my other fish do this (e.g. bicolor angel, azure damsels, wrasses, etc).

He also seems to have an insatiable appetite, especially for nori which I provide daily. He eats everything I put in the tank with such gusto to the point where I have to give him a lot of nori first so that the other fish can get enough food, and/or target feed some of my other fish that eat more slowly. He also goes crazy for and eats the feces of my other fish. Maybe he has a nutritional deficiency? I never see him grazing on the rocks either, and I suspect it's because I cannot manage to get any sort of algal growth for some reason. The only thing that grows on the rocks/glass is coralline, large cell amphidinium dinos, and an encrusting green algae and this weird fuzzy stuff on the glass that I both have yet to ID.

As far as I can tell, he is otherwise completely healthy. Beautiful colouration, fully intact fins, clear eyes, no signs of external parasites, swims around normally most of the time, etc.

Here is a video, he's extremely fat with nori at the moment, but note his rapid breathing and funky swimming patterns.

Additionally, here is all of the information suggested in the sticky post:
Aquarium Parameters:
Aquarium type: reef, soft corals and lps
Aquarium water volume: ~300L (note for the tang police, I have a ~750L tank lined up for when he gets larger)
Filtration type: clarisea roll filter, great white skimmer, activated carbon in a media bag in the sump, and plenty of rock/sand for bio purposes
Lighting: 2x Blaze X Minis
How long has the aquarium been established?: 7 months
Digital image of the whole aquarium under white light: Will upload later

Water quality (be sure to indicate what measurement units you are using, as well as the test kit brand)
Temperature: 26C
pH: unsure, will test soon but probably about 8.2
Salinity / specific gravity: 34-35ppt (refractometer)
Ammonia: n/a
Nitrite: n/a
Nitrate: varies from 5-30ppm (hanna checker)
Phosphate: 0.1 to 0.2ppm (hanna checker, currently battling Amphidinium dinos, so trying to keep my nutrients up)
Copper: n/a
Other: n/a

In-depth information:
Have you lost any fish to this problem yet?: No
Are any invertebrates affected?: No, but a lot of my corals have consistently seemed to be less happy than they before we had a 4 day power outage in Jan this year...everything survived though. (I also made a fully enclosed plastic lid about 3 or 4 months ago...maybe this is preventing gas exchange? Should I add some screen/mesh to it? Might it also be filtering out light from reaching the corals?? Questions for another time maybe...)
Respiration rate of affected fish (in gill beats per minutes, count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4): approx 250-270 gill beats per minute
Are the affected fish still feeding?: yes, very very well
What remedies have you tried so far?: none
Digital image of the fish with the health issue, taken under white light: can do this tomorrow if needed
A short video of the fish: link above

TLDR: Sailfin tang seems to be breathing really fast, swims erratically sometimes, and eats like he has never had food before...but otherwise appears very healthy. None of my other fish show any of these sympyoms. Is this normal, does he have brain damage, or should I take some sort of action to remedy his condition(s)?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

My sailfin has been exhibiting some odd behaviour for at least a couple months now. I'm not really sure when it started. My main concern is that he is always breathing very rapidly, or at least it seems rapid to me. I watched several dozen videos of sailfin tangs and most of them were breathing noticeably slower. Note that none of my other fish are breathing rapidly like this.

Additionally, he swims into the glass as if he is trying to go through it sometimes, and does some other weird swimming motions. He sometimes does this when I'm not around, but I usually notice it occuring mostly when I am sitting in front of the aquarium...he seems like he is trying to swim towards me. His colour also changes to very pale or very dark for a few minutes sometimes. I thought that he might just be seeing his reflection, but again, none of my other fish do this (e.g. bicolor angel, azure damsels, wrasses, etc).

He also seems to have an insatiable appetite, especially for nori which I provide daily. He eats everything I put in the tank with such gusto to the point where I have to give him a lot of nori first so that the other fish can get enough food, and/or target feed some of my other fish that eat more slowly. He also goes crazy for and eats the feces of my other fish. Maybe he has a nutritional deficiency? I never see him grazing on the rocks either, and I suspect it's because I cannot manage to get any sort of algal growth for some reason. The only thing that grows on the rocks/glass is coralline, large cell amphidinium dinos, and an encrusting green algae and this weird fuzzy stuff on the glass that I both have yet to ID.

As far as I can tell, he is otherwise completely healthy. Beautiful colouration, fully intact fins, clear eyes, no signs of external parasites, swims around normally most of the time, etc.

Here is a video, he's extremely fat with nori at the moment, but note his rapid breathing and funky swimming patterns.

Additionally, here is all of the information suggested in the sticky post:
Aquarium Parameters:
Aquarium type: reef, soft corals and lps
Aquarium water volume: ~300L (note for the tang police, I have a ~750L tank lined up for when he gets larger)
Filtration type: clarisea roll filter, great white skimmer, activated carbon in a media bag in the sump, and plenty of rock/sand for bio purposes
Lighting: 2x Blaze X Minis
How long has the aquarium been established?: 7 months
Digital image of the whole aquarium under white light: Will upload later

Water quality (be sure to indicate what measurement units you are using, as well as the test kit brand)
Temperature: 26C
pH: unsure, will test soon but probably about 8.2
Salinity / specific gravity: 34-35ppt (refractometer)
Ammonia: n/a
Nitrite: n/a
Nitrate: varies from 5-30ppm (hanna checker)
Phosphate: 0.1 to 0.2ppm (hanna checker, currently battling Amphidinium dinos, so trying to keep my nutrients up)
Copper: n/a
Other: n/a

In-depth information:
Have you lost any fish to this problem yet?: No
Are any invertebrates affected?: No, but a lot of my corals have consistently seemed to be less happy than they before we had a 4 day power outage in Jan this year...everything survived though. (I also made a fully enclosed plastic lid about 3 or 4 months ago...maybe this is preventing gas exchange? Should I add some screen/mesh to it? Might it also be filtering out light from reaching the corals?? Questions for another time maybe...)
Respiration rate of affected fish (in gill beats per minutes, count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4): approx 250-270 gill beats per minute
Are the affected fish still feeding?: yes, very very well
What remedies have you tried so far?: none
Digital image of the fish with the health issue, taken under white light: can do this tomorrow if needed
A short video of the fish: link above

TLDR: Sailfin tang seems to be breathing really fast, swims erratically sometimes, and eats like he has never had food before...but otherwise appears very healthy. None of my other fish show any of these sympyoms. Is this normal, does he have brain damage, or should I take some sort of action to remedy his condition(s)?

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

How long have you had the tang?
When was the last fish added?
What is the diet variety fed to this tank?

I don't think this is a parasitic disease issue, more likely a long term chronic issue.

 

[Alec J]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

How long have you had the tang?
When was the last fish added?
What is the diet variety fed to this tank?

I don't think this is a parasitic disease issue, more likely a long term chronic issue.

Cheers

I've had the sailfin for nearly 5 months now. The most recent fish, a pair of longipinnis sand-sifting gobies, were added on 8 April/5 days ago. Additionally, a melanurus wrasse was added on 26 March/17 days ago, but this had been going on long before those dates.

I feed nori every day, as well as a 2-3 cubes of a variety of frozen hikari foods (mysis, "ocean plankton"...which is just a slightly larger shrimp species, mega marine algae, and occasionally brine shrimp/spirulina brine). Also sometimes toss in some finely chopped prawns or a bit of seachem flake food.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Cheers

I've had the sailfin for nearly 5 months now. The most recent fish, a pair of longipinnis sand-sifting gobies, were added on 8 April/5 days ago. Additionally, a melanurus wrasse was added on 26 March/17 days ago, but this had been going on long before those dates.

I feed nori every day, as well as a 2-3 cubes of a variety of frozen hikari foods (mysis, "ocean plankton"...which is just a slightly larger shrimp species, mega marine algae, and occasionally brine shrimp/spirulina brine). Also sometimes toss in some finely chopped prawns or a bit of seachem flake food.

O.K., that all sounds good, I just wanted to rule out some things.

I think this is a chronic issue, and as such, may not be fully resolvable. First thing is to increase the aeration; adding an air stone to the tank for example. Does the tank have a protein skimmer? Those help a lot with aeration. I doubt that high CO2/low O2 is the primary issue here, but increasing gas exchange helps with the rapid breathing.

Then, if possible, sneak a peak under the tang's gill covers as it swims by - are the red or pink? If they are pink, that indicates anemia.

Jay

 

[Alec J]

Interesting, wouldn't be suprised if something had happened, as the tank he was in before I got him was less than ideal. I do have a skimmer, but I only run it at night as I don't have any sort of bubble trap in my sump, and it's a bit oversized too. I'll add an airstone for now and see what happens. I've also noticed he seems to breathe every so slightly more slowler in the morning when he is not fat/full of nori.

Tried to see under his operculum but it's quite difficult.

 

[Alec J]

Update, I think he might just be attacking his reflection in the glass. I did a little experiment with keeping the room bright vs dark, and he does the behaviour a lot more when the room is dark, and must be able to see himself a lot more easily (same effect as when you look at yourself in a window when it's dark outside) which might be causing him to stress out and breathe faster.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Update, I think he might just be attacking his reflection in the glass. I did a little experiment with keeping the room bright vs dark, and he does the behaviour a lot more when the room is dark, and must be able to see himself a lot more easily (same effect as when you look at yourself in a window when it's dark outside) which might be causing him to stress out and breathe faster.

Could be - but generally, rapid breathing from activity fades when the activity stops. Increased water temperature also increases respiration rates.

 

[Alec J]

Could be - but generally, rapid breathing from activity fades when the activity stops. Increased water temperature also increases respiration rates.

That's a good point, very confusing this issue! Just can't help but feel bad for him seeing him breathing so fast all the time. Could it be flukes? Maybe some water parameter is causing issues e.g. excess CO2? low pH?

The water temp is kept at 26C, I could try lowering it to 24 if that may be beneficial.

 

[Hawaii hobbyist]

I think it’s him seeing his reflection and getting worked up

 

[Jay Hemdal]

That's a good point, very confusing this issue! Just can't help but feel bad for him seeing him breathing so fast all the time. Could it be flukes? Maybe some water parameter is causing issues e.g. excess CO2? low pH?

The water temp is kept at 26C, I could try lowering it to 24 if that may be beneficial.

If it were high CO2 or low O2, all of the fish would be breathing fast. Gill flukes can be species-specific, so all fish may not be affected. Adding good aeration will rule out gas exchange issues.
Praziquantel can typically be dosed in a display tank. You might consider trying that just to rule out gill flukes.
Have you been able to see its gills?

 

[Borat]

My sailfin has been exhibiting some odd behaviour for at least a couple months now. I'm not really sure when it started. My main concern is that he is always breathing very rapidly, or at least it seems rapid to me. I watched several dozen videos of sailfin tangs and most of them were breathing noticeably slower. Note that none of my other fish are breathing rapidly like this.

Additionally, he swims into the glass as if he is trying to go through it sometimes, and does some other weird swimming motions. He sometimes does this when I'm not around, but I usually notice it occuring mostly when I am sitting in front of the aquarium...he seems like he is trying to swim towards me. His colour also changes to very pale or very dark for a few minutes sometimes. I thought that he might just be seeing his reflection, but again, none of my other fish do this (e.g. bicolor angel, azure damsels, wrasses, etc).

He also seems to have an insatiable appetite, especially for nori which I provide daily. He eats everything I put in the tank with such gusto to the point where I have to give him a lot of nori first so that the other fish can get enough food, and/or target feed some of my other fish that eat more slowly. He also goes crazy for and eats the feces of my other fish. Maybe he has a nutritional deficiency? I never see him grazing on the rocks either, and I suspect it's because I cannot manage to get any sort of algal growth for some reason. The only thing that grows on the rocks/glass is coralline, large cell amphidinium dinos, and an encrusting green algae and this weird fuzzy stuff on the glass that I both have yet to ID.

As far as I can tell, he is otherwise completely healthy. Beautiful colouration, fully intact fins, clear eyes, no signs of external parasites, swims around normally most of the time, etc.

Here is a video, he's extremely fat with nori at the moment, but note his rapid breathing and funky swimming patterns.

Additionally, here is all of the information suggested in the sticky post:
Aquarium Parameters:
Aquarium type: reef, soft corals and lps
Aquarium water volume: ~300L (note for the tang police, I have a ~750L tank lined up for when he gets larger)
Filtration type: clarisea roll filter, great white skimmer, activated carbon in a media bag in the sump, and plenty of rock/sand for bio purposes
Lighting: 2x Blaze X Minis
How long has the aquarium been established?: 7 months
Digital image of the whole aquarium under white light: Will upload later

Water quality (be sure to indicate what measurement units you are using, as well as the test kit brand)
Temperature: 26C
pH: unsure, will test soon but probably about 8.2
Salinity / specific gravity: 34-35ppt (refractometer)
Ammonia: n/a
Nitrite: n/a
Nitrate: varies from 5-30ppm (hanna checker)
Phosphate: 0.1 to 0.2ppm (hanna checker, currently battling Amphidinium dinos, so trying to keep my nutrients up)
Copper: n/a
Other: n/a

In-depth information:
Have you lost any fish to this problem yet?: No
Are any invertebrates affected?: No, but a lot of my corals have consistently seemed to be less happy than they before we had a 4 day power outage in Jan this year...everything survived though. (I also made a fully enclosed plastic lid about 3 or 4 months ago...maybe this is preventing gas exchange? Should I add some screen/mesh to it? Might it also be filtering out light from reaching the corals?? Questions for another time maybe...)
Respiration rate of affected fish (in gill beats per minutes, count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4): approx 250-270 gill beats per minute
Are the affected fish still feeding?: yes, very very well
What remedies have you tried so far?: none
Digital image of the fish with the health issue, taken under white light: can do this tomorrow if needed
A short video of the fish: link above

TLDR: Sailfin tang seems to be breathing really fast, swims erratically sometimes, and eats like he has never had food before...but otherwise appears very healthy. None of my other fish show any of these sympyoms. Is this normal, does he have brain damage, or should I take some sort of action to remedy his condition(s)?

I have a few pets - and I can understand their language (I talk to my pet chicken before I go to bed).
He is saying to you - "Get me out of this tiny glass box and put me into (at least) 6 foot tank you ba**rd".

 

[Alec J]

After 48hr of aeration/running the skimmer, his operculum beats varied from about 110bpm this morning (7am) to130bpm (6pm), and up to 200bpm when feeding/when I put in nori. Also, I'm not sure if I was counting correctly originally when I got 250-270bpm as a result.

I found these videos



where you can see other sailfins, one much larger than mine and in a larger tank, that also breathe quite quickly. Additionally, a friend of mine has one around the same size as mine (though noticeably slimmer, as I don't think he feeds nori very much) in a frag system that is smaller than mine, and it watched it yesterday and it breathes much more slowly. I don't think swimming space is the root of this issue.

Maybe giving food/nori causes a lot of excitement and thus increased oxygen uptake?

Additionally,
I've gotten a few small glimpses of his gills and they do look pretty red and normal, but I don't really have a baseline to compare to. And regarding prazi, I was going to treat with that when quarantining but it's highly regulated in Australia, and pretty difficult to get unfortunately.

 

[Uncle99]

Looks like my Sailfin.

Acts like my Sailfin.

I can’t see anything of concern to me.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

After 48hr of aeration/running the skimmer, his operculum beats varied from about 110bpm this morning (7am) to130bpm (6pm), and up to 200bpm when feeding/when I put in nori. Also, I'm not sure if I was counting correctly originally when I got 250-270bpm as a result.

I found these videos



where you can see other sailfins, one much larger than mine and in a larger tank, that also breathe quite quickly. Additionally, a friend of mine has one around the same size as mine (though noticeably slimmer, as I don't think he feeds nori very much) in a frag system that is smaller than mine, and it watched it yesterday and it breathes much more slowly. I don't think swimming space is the root of this issue.

Maybe giving food/nori causes a lot of excitement and thus increased oxygen uptake?

Additionally,
I've gotten a few small glimpses of his gills and they do look pretty red and normal, but I don't really have a baseline to compare to. And regarding prazi, I was going to treat with that when quarantining but it's highly regulated in Australia, and pretty difficult to get unfortunately.

I find it easiest to count the gill beats in 15 seconds then multiply by four. I couldn't get a count for you from the video because the tang was too busy eating. Certainly, more activity will cause the fish to ventilate faster. The baseline, when it is just cruising around the tank should be around 100 BPM. Anything over 150 BPM is not normal.

Here is an excerpt from a respiration rate study that I've worked on and off since the mid-1980s:

A note on respiration rates

Aquarists are warned throughout this book about rapid breathing in their fish as a symptom of potential problems, yet few know just what “rapid” is. Obviously, fish kept in warmer water or those with gill disease will respire more rapidly. Actively swimming fish respire faster than sedentary ones. Less obvious is that larger fish respire more slowly and, in some cases, high ammonia levels will cause a fish to respire more slowly than normal. While there is some difference between species, (Chinese algae eaters will breathe twice as fast as any other fish their size) most tropical fish of the size kept in smaller aquariums should breathe at a rate of between 70 and 120 gill beats per minute. Relative respiration rate is the most important value – capturing the respiration rate of your fish when they are known to be healthy, gives you a baseline to compare to if you later suspect a problem. Not having this baseline data is an issue for newly acquired fish, so using the information below may serve as a secondary reference.


Fish may exhibit a variety of respiration forms in addition to the actual rate itself:

Mouth open respiration – may be a sign of gill disease or toxic compounds in the water.
Rapid, shallow respiration – may be signs as above, or just a result of high activity level.
Coughing – a result of high levels of particulates in the water, or gill parasites.
Gasping at surface – usually seen in freshwater fish under low oxygen conditions.
Slow, deep respiration – may be normal, or a sign of ammonia toxicity.
Slow, shallow respiration – normal for most fishes.


Pomacanthid angelfish are sometimes known to breathe using only one operculum. They can switch back and forth, and then return to breathing with both opercula, all for no discernable reason. Emperor angelfish, Pomacanthus imperator and moray eels are well known “skip breathers”.


Some fish simply do not hold still long enough for the aquarist to accurately count their respiration rate. In these cases, try to measure the rate for 15 seconds. Repeat this multiple times and then average the result and multiply that by four to get an average gill beat per minute value. For rapidly swimming fish, you can try setting a cadence to the few breaths you can see, and then tap your finger keeping count at the same rate if the fish’s gills become obscured. Another option is to video capture your subject and then count the respiration rate from the video – giving the option of pausing and repeating the video for a more accurate count.

A database of over 300 samples of fish respiration rates was developed. Variables such as water temperature, fish size and “normality” were recorded. From this, estimated respiration rates for other fish could be established. Because this data cannot easily be presented in written form, some of the data has been extracted here:

Slowest respiration rate: 6 gill beats per minute for a 9” rockfish at 48 degrees F.
Quickest respiration rate for a healthy fish: 217 BPM for a 3” algae eater at 78 degrees F.
Quickest resp. rate for an unhealthy fish: 200 BPM for a butterflyfish with marine Ich
Quickest resp. rate for a healthy fish: 160 BPM for small butterflyfish at 82 F.
Average resp. rate for entire database: 60 BPM
Average size for all fish in database: 12”
Average water temperature for all database samples: 76 F.