Yellow Tang Randomly Died

[mgkg327]

I got this yellow tang as a juvenile about 1.5 months ago from biota and it has been doing great. This morning he was acting kind of distressed and constantly "looking" up as strange as that sounds. I just had a few minutes break from work and was getting test kits out and he just darted upward and died. Has anyone else experienced this?

I don't have a ton of test kits but these are my params
Salinity 1.025
Nitrates: 19.4 (high but not deadly right?)
Nitrites: 0
Ammonia: 0
125 gallon tank

I do have some terrible algae problems right now, pic attached. These are just dinos though right? Not harmful as far as I understand. I don't know what could have happened to the tang. He's been eating fine as well. Nori daily and dki pellets that I feed the rest of the tank. All other fish seem healthy.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

What are the other fish in the tank?
Does the tank have aeration (not just circulation)?
You haven't used any liquid phosphate remover have you?

Jay

 

[mgkg327]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

What are the other fish in the tank?
Does the tank have aeration (not just circulation)?
You haven't used any liquid phosphate remover have you?

Jay

2 clowns
1 Banggai cardinal
1 yellow wrasse
1 melanarus wrasse
2 royal gramma

None of them are aggressive in the slightest either.

The tank is a waterbox with sump. The water drops from the return chamber through the air into the filter socks. Is that what you mean? And no, no liquid phosphate or any other chemicals.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

2 clowns
1 Banggai cardinal
1 yellow wrasse
1 melanarus wrasse
2 royal gramma

None of them are aggressive in the slightest either.

The tank is a waterbox with sump. The water drops from the return chamber through the air into the filter socks. Is that what you mean? And no, no liquid phosphate or any other chemicals.

O.K., sounds good, I just wanted to rule out some likely issues. Some dinoflagellates purportedly can product toxins in the water, but I've never run into that myself so I don't have any firsthand knowledge. You might search for some threads here. The typical first aid for suspected dino toxicity is carbon filtration and aeration, and then, working on reducing the infestation.

Jay

 

[Jekyl]

Any other recent additions and have a quarantine method in place? What are you feeding?

 

[mgkg327]

O.K., sounds good, I just wanted to rule out some likely issues. Some dinoflagellates purportedly can product toxins in the water, but I've never run into that myself so I don't have any firsthand knowledge. You might search for some threads here. The typical first aid for suspected dino toxicity is carbon filtration and aeration, and then, working on reducing the infestation.

Jay

Ok, I guess dino research is my next step. TY for the info

 

[mgkg327]

Any other recent additions and have a quarantine method in place? What are you feeding?

I was feeding nori and Easy Reefs dki pellets. The most recent additions were the two wrasses 2-3 weeks ago. I don't have my own quarantine setup. I know it's not perfect but the two wrasses were from seahorsesavvy which does a medicated quarantine process and all others except the clowns were captive bred from biota which I would think reduces the chances of diseases pretty heavily.

The clowns were the first two in the tank from a LFS before I even thought about quarantine

 

[vetteguy53081]

I was feeding nori and Easy Reefs dki pellets. The most recent additions were the two wrasses 2-3 weeks ago. I don't have my own quarantine setup. I know it's not perfect but the two wrasses were from seahorsesavvy which does a medicated quarantine process and all others except the clowns were captive bred from biota which I would think reduces the chances of diseases pretty heavily.

The clowns were the first two in the tank from a LFS before I even thought about quarantine

What is the age of the tank and how are you testing the water?
Also , when getting Quarantined specimens, assume they have something foreign and do even a short quarantine on your own of 14-21 days

 

[mgkg327]

What is the age of the tank and how are you testing the water?
Also , when getting Quarantined specimens, assume they have something foreign and do even a short quarantine on your own of 14-21 days

The tank is only around 3 months old. I just have API kits for ammonia and nitrite, hanna for nitrate. I was hoping by getting already quarantined + captive bred from biota would eliminate the need to setup a separate quarantine tank but maybe that's just a dream.

And I don't know if I described how the tang died fully. The tank is in my office so I actually saw it happen out of the corner of my eye. I mentioned he was swimming strangely in the morning but when it happened, he suddenly darted toward the top of the tank and instantly died. It was like something inside of him burst or something.. It's not what I would imagine a disease/parasite doing, not that I know anything but just my 2 cents on what I saw..

 

[vetteguy53081]

The tank is only around 3 months old. I just have API kits for ammonia and nitrite, hanna for nitrate. I was hoping by getting already quarantined + captive bred from biota would eliminate the need to setup a separate quarantine tank but maybe that's just a dream.

And I don't know if I described how the tang died fully. The tank is in my office so I actually saw it happen out of the corner of my eye. I mentioned he was swimming strangely in the morning but when it happened, he suddenly darted toward the top of the tank and instantly died. It was like something inside of him burst or something.. It's not what I would imagine a disease/parasite doing, not that I know anything but just my 2 cents on what I saw..

That darting can stem from injury, lack of oxygen or irritation from flukes or other disease. Not the fish you want to lose and sorry again to see this happen
When opportunity allows, take a water sample to an LFS that does not use API kits for testing and see what results they come up with to rule out elevated levels