Dying Naso Tang... what to do/what happened?

hocky

hocky

Member
My Naso tang is all of a sudden laying down is VERY lethargic... it doesn't look good at all. I have no idea what happened. He was literally eating out of my hand 5 minutes ago, swimming perfectly normally. Now, he is looking horrible. I fed like normal, 1 blood worm cube, 1 shrimp cube, and then cyclopeeze and DT's for the coral. Some time while eating, he settled to the bottom and started doing very badly. I immediately moved him from the DT to the QT, he didn't even put up a fight when I netted him. He was in a 150g reef, fairly fully stocked. Everything else seems normal. Stung by a coral or another fish?
Water:
Amm/Trite: 0
Trate: 10
SG: 1.026
Temp: 81
Stock list:
Flame Angel
Flame Cardinal
Foxface Rabbitfish
Lawnmower Blenny
Mandarin Dragonette
Maroon Clown
Naso Tang
Sailfin Tang
Astrea Snails
Blue Leg Hermit Crabs
Brittle Starfish
Bubble Tip Anemone
Coral Banded Shrimp
Flame Scallop
Nassarius Snails
Peppermint Shrimp
Purple Crocea Clam
Corals
Blue Florida Ricordia
Cabbage Leather
Colored Tentacle Fungia Plate
Elongated Pulsing Xenia
Feather Duster
Flowerpot Goniopora
Frogspawn
Green Florida Ricordia
Green Mushrooms
Maze Brain Coral
Orange Florida Ricordia
Orange Sun Coral
Toadstool Leather
Wood Polyps
Xenia
Yellow Gorgonian
Yellow Sun Coral
Zoanthids
Ideas of what is going on? :-
 
hocky

hocky

Member
I did notice that he has two small white marks on his face that normally are not there, but other than that he looks entirely normal. hrmm....
 
scotts

scotts

Active Member
He was literally eating out of my hand 5 minutes ago,
This statement of course leads to the question, was there anything on your hands? Soap maybe?
 
namman

namman

New Member
I have a naso tang with a foxface and I saw my naso brush against the fox when her spines were extended and watched the naso sink to the bottom for a couple hours...The color drained away and I thought she was dying....Apparently she was stung by accident I hope...She is fine now and the two of them swim side by side all day. Maybe this is similar to what may have happened to you?
 
dogstar

dogstar

Active Member
Though I doubt its the issue now and I hope the fish makes it but I did not notice any vegetable matter on the menu. Tangs need mostly a herbivore diet.
 
beth

beth

Administrator
Staff member
Look the fish over for any type of injury (especially from another tang) and observe the tank for any aggression.
 
hocky

hocky

Member
Originally Posted by Dogstar
Though I doubt its the issue now and I hope the fish makes it but I did not notice any vegetable matter on the menu. Tangs need mostly a herbivore diet.

The tang gets plenty of veggies, it just wasn't on the menu for that course.
No apparent aggression in the tank, all of the fish get along well. Only signs of injury are the couple of white marks on his body. Maybe he did get damaged by the foxface some how? He seems to be laying at the bottom of the tank and occassionally gets up, swims around, then lays back down. Hopefully it is just a sting and he will be ok....
 
ccampbell57

ccampbell57

Active Member
Hocky - relax with your Naso. I have had mine for over a year now and has done unreal. He is always eating great and swimming great. All of a sudden 2 months ago he did exactly what yours is doing. He would lay on the bottom of the tank and just look at me. I would try to get him off the bottom and he would swim for a second and then just lay on the ground again. I thought it was some aggression issues and I put him in the Refugium. But he did the same thing. I figured that it wasnt fair so I moved him back into the DT with the others and just waited.
I gave him a week and after that, he regained his strength and he is now a champ.
DOnt do anything crazy and watch him. Make sure that he is not being picked on. He should recover.
good luck
 
hocky

hocky

Member
Originally Posted by ccampbell57
Hocky - relax with your Naso. I have had mine for over a year now and has done unreal. He is always eating great and swimming great. All of a sudden 2 months ago he did exactly what yours is doing. He would lay on the bottom of the tank and just look at me. I would try to get him off the bottom and he would swim for a second and then just lay on the ground again. I thought it was some aggression issues and I put him in the Refugium. But he did the same thing. I figured that it wasnt fair so I moved him back into the DT with the others and just waited.
I gave him a week and after that, he regained his strength and he is now a champ.
DOnt do anything crazy and watch him. Make sure that he is not being picked on. He should recover.
good luck

Thanks for the encouraging words! He is still doing the same thing, so I hope to have the same outcome that you did.
 
hocky

hocky

Member
bump this one up. He lived for about 5 days like this, eating sparingly and finally died.
Today, my Sailfin tang has come up with the exact same symptoms and like the naso, had 2 round white dots near his face. Are these fish getting stung by something? This is frustrating because I have no idea what could be causing the problem... the tank is thriving.
 
iowafish

iowafish

Member
Can you get a good clear picture of these white dots and post them here (and also on the diseases forum, probably)? Very strange.
Did the Naso have these dots before that fateful feeding?
KH
 
hocky

hocky

Member
Originally Posted by IOWAFISH
Can you get a good clear picture of these white dots and post them here (and also on the diseases forum, probably)? Very strange.
Did the Naso have these dots before that fateful feeding?
KH

I will do my best to get a shot of it. And no, not that I noticed it didn't. One notable, possibly related bit of info is that last week I noticed a round section of the sailfin's lower fin that had a large round spot that was clear/whitish. As of yesterday, that same spot was gone.
 
hocky

hocky

Member
Nope. None of the other fish have ever had any problem with the foxface. Actually, I haven't seen the foxface in a while now that I think about it.
 
paintballer768

paintballer768

Active Member
Hmm. Im no good with diseases and symptoms of stuff, but just throwing this out there. Maybe a bacterial infection of some kind around the gill plates?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top