Blue tang & clowns not eating

[bluetang81]

Hi everyone. This sure is a great site! I just registered and this is my first post.
I bought a clown pair and a beautiful blue hippo tang on Saturday. My new critters have not eaten anything since I bought them. I have tried to feed them mysis shrimp, formula 1 & 2 flakes, and seaweed. I have tried soaking in garlic. The clownfish have approaced the flakes as they sink but no takers. The tang completely ignores all of the food, even when right in front of her.
Making matters worse, all 3 fish immediately came down with Ich within 2 days of putting them in my tank. I started treating the ich with hyposalinity last night. I drip acclimated all the fish before putting them in tank and at the time my tank parameters were all right on target.
My situation is:
50g tank
2 clowns
1 blue tang
78 degree water
8.0 pH
Zero ammonia, zero nitrate & nitrite
Is the Ich affecting their appetite? Any ideas on how I can entice these critters to eat something? Any thoughts would be appreciated!!

 

[mavgi]

welcome to saltwaterfish
when you buy new fish you want to quarantine the fish in QT before you add them in your main tank. very important things is when you bring the fish in your home before you add them even to a QT you need to check the salinity in the bug because if there is big different between the salinity in your QT the fish get stress and they get ich or sometimes worse in the tang velvet. now you make hypo so i hope everything will be ok but the best thing is to add a QT and to acclimate new arrival about 4 weeks before you add them in your MT. if the fish are infected or arrived already with ich they will not harm the MT and by the time you can add the fish to your main tank and keep your MT healty.

 

[bluetang81]

Thanks Mavgi the quick response!
I decided not to QT this time because the tang and clown were the first fish in the tank. There were no other fish in there to infect so my main tank essentially became a QT for the moment. This is a new tank and I moved my sand and LR from a smaller 30g. I had some inverts in there but I moved them out so I could hypo. When I add new fish in the future I will definitely QT.
Any thoughts on getting the blue tang and clowns to eat?

 

[jerthunter]

Originally Posted by BlueTang81
Hi everyone. This sure is a great site! I just registered and this is my first post.
I bought a clown pair and a beautiful blue hippo tang on Saturday. My new critters have not eaten anything since I bought them. I have tried to feed them mysis shrimp, formula 1 & 2 flakes, and seaweed. I have tried soaking in garlic. The clownfish have approaced the flakes as they sink but no takers. The tang completely ignores all of the food, even when right in front of her.
Making matters worse, all 3 fish immediately came down with Ich within 2 days of putting them in my tank. I started treating the ich with hyposalinity last night. I drip acclimated all the fish before putting them in tank and at the time my tank parameters were all right on target.
My situation is:
50g tank
2 clowns
1 blue tang
78 degree water
8.0 pH
Zero ammonia, zero nitrate & nitrite
Is the Ich affecting their appetite? Any ideas on how I can entice these critters to eat something? Any thoughts would be appreciated!!
It is probably stress from moving that has caused the ich outbreak as well as the reason they aren't eatting. Doing hyposalinty is the right thing for the ich and hopefully they will start eatting soon. It sometimes takes a few days for new fish I get to start eatting normally.
On another note a 50 gal tank is probably too small to keep a blue hippo tang so that might cause some extra stress, especially over time.

 

[bluetang81]

Jerthhunter:
Thanks for the reply. My tang is only 3" right now so I was hoping 50g would be OK for 6 months or so.
Do you think it is too small right now even though she's only 3"?

 

[jerthunter]

I THINK you are fine right now. I really don't know but most people say that tangs need bigger tanks not just because of their size but because of their need for open swimming room. It is my opinion that the longer you keep a tang is a small tank the less likely it will live long.
I would try feeding without garlic right now, just try feeding once a day and they will eventually eat. For the tang you might want to put some veggies on a clip and he might go for that when you aren't around. Tangs seem to be very easily spooked so he might wait until you aren't even in the room to eat

 

[mavgi]

the fish stress and they are getting to hypo so when the stress will reduce they will eat back. check when you doing the hypo your ph level and i sugesst to keep them 4 weeks in hypo .
and it was a better idea to move the fish from the MT to other tank and to leave the main tank 30 days without the fish that all remaining parasites in the tank have gone through their full life cycle and the infective forms have died. but now i don't think it will a good idea to move them they are already stress and if you move them now it's can be worse.