Possible sick Tang! Someone Please give advise before it's to late....

[88flaminchevy]

Hey Guys,

I've got a 4" Blue Eye Tang that has just recently started breathing really fast. I've had him for about a month and a half and he's been perfectly fine up until yesterday. He's swimming fine, eating good and not really showing any other symptoms of disease beside the breathing. He's always been a little bit shy and a lite sleeper. In the past few weeks he's been getting less shy, sleeping more and is now finally coming up to the glass so I can check him out. I've looked for any sign's of Ick or parasites and I really don't see anything on him. He looks perfectly healthy. His colors are good, fins look good and eyes aren't cloudy. I put a rock in the tank daily that in wrapped in brown algae and he will hang out around it nearly all day pecking at it with my Naso and Lawnmower blenny. I do not have a quarantine tank so none of my livestock is quarantined before introduced into the tank. He was the last fish we've put into the tank and none of the other fish have been sick or died in over 3 months.

Does anyone have any advice? I'm hoping I can do something for him now before it get worse!

Thanks!!

 

[Laker]

How big is your tank, and how hot has the temperature been in the tank? With the recent hot weather and likely higher tank temperatures (unless you run a chiller and/or fans), the concentration of dissolved oxygen decreases. If the tank is a small size, or if there are a lot of fish in the tank, an active blue tang may be gasping for oxygen.

 

[88flaminchevy]

Hello,

Thank you for responding. Actually the house is all closed up and the AC is blasting. The current tank temp is 78 deg. I don't have a chiller so I use my reefkeeper to control the temp with just a fan and heater. It's an 80 gallon tank with a 20 gallon sump and the tank temp has not been lower than 77 deg or higher than 79 deg in the past 4 weeks. What I have noticed is when the AC is blasting in the house, the PH goes from 8.2 to 8.0 or even 7.9. I'm wondering if it's an issue with the oxygen level in the water. The blue eye tang looks completely healthy, but he's definitely having problems breathing. He's swimming around just fine and eating so I honestly don't think he's sick with a parasite or anything. He's the last fish I've introduced into the tank over a month ago and I haven't had any issues with a fish being sick or dieing since. The tank is not heavily stocked at all either. We have 3 chromis, 2 small clowns, a small six line, a scooter blenny, a neon dottyback, a cleaner shrimp and a small Naso tang that is the Blue eye tang buddy. The blue eye does seem to like to swim around quite a bit, so if it is a lack of oxygen in the water, it could explain it. I would assume the skimmer should be pumping out enough oxygen to keep the levels up where they should be. I am wondering why the PH is not holding very stable though. I know there could be some CO2 in the air because the house is closed up but I wouldn't expect it to effect PH that much.

 

[coral diver]

Adding garlic oil (from LFS) will help boost fish immune, and pointing your PH or return towards the water surface and create ripples on the water surface will help in oxygenation your tank good luck.

 

[5ft24]

with the windows closed up, if the PH drops then you are having oxygen exchange issues... More CO2 is in the house air... Take a sample of water outside (a glass) and stir it up and let it sit for 10 minutes or so then take it in and drop the PH probe into it... if it's PH is higher than what it reads in the tank, then it's an O2 exchange issue...
Do you have anywhere in the tank/sump where the water falls and/or splashes? that helps with oxygenation...

 

[Laker]

If possible open the windows for a little bit of time to allow some oxygen to come into the house, and for CO2 to leave.