Problems with yellow tangs

[nolucksalts]

I've been doing salt water for about 8 months now and have had some really terrible luck and expensive luck.Question is I have a 55 gallon tank with lots of live rock ,2 chocolate stars ,1 banded shrimp,snails,crabs .For fish I have a maroon clown ,couple bennies,2 blue damsels ,1 puffer,1 black and white spotted fish forget name and one blue tang .Anyway on with the story ,I have been thru at least 6 yellow tangs they get a white spotty film on them after a couple days and with in 3 to 4 days die instantly ,it must wipe out there system very frustrating and expensive my blue gets it too but he always seems to pull thru than it comes back again and the blue has been in there for probally 4 months. first thought it was ick ,did fresh dips ,now I just use marycin I believe its called doesnt seem to bother my stars,or feather dusters when I use this treatment but I just want to know if I should give up all together on yellows seems like any nice size fish wont live except blue all little things like clowns,bennies and so on are fine -- i"m really frustrated cant really set up hospital tank at this time any advice they do start to breathe heavy also ---THank you for your time , Brian

 

[sinner's girl]

Since no one has answered i'll try.
how long is your tank? imo tangs shouldn't be in less then a 4ft.
How many fish are in there? I think you may have too many.
two tangs in a 55gl is a no no.
If the yellow keeps getting stressed they will keep getting ich and will keep dying unless you treat ich.
in order for ich to go away your main tank must be fish free for a period of time (don't remember how long). if there is alway a fish in there then the ich still has a host. so when you add a new yellow tang chances are it will get ich.
since you can't set up another tank you are limited in what you can do. Some med's will hurt the inverts.
i would not add anymore tangs to that tank.
if you search for ich you'll find how to treat the tank.
Good luck.

 

[brenner_jeff]

Yeah your in a tough one here you have a few choices but you will have to work for them
1. You can use copper or a varient such as coppermine (sp?). This is dangerous as I will assure you it will kill the inverts, and if done wrong the fish. So if you were to go this route you would need a seperate tank to put the inverts. If you decide to do this follow the medication directions to a tee.
2. Hyposalinity. This would be my recomendation. You should lower the salingity to a SG of 1.009 for a period of three weeks, This is working for me great right now in one of my friends tanks. The downside of this is that it would also kill inverts. If I were in your shoes I would do the hypo and move the inverts to what will become a QT. Treat for three weeks and slowly (3-5 days) raise the salinity back up. Then put the inverts back. Keep the QT up and place all new fish in here for 3 weeks before placing them in the main. This is what I do and It works very well. A QT for the inverts will run you $100 tops.
As a general recomendation i must say you have to much stuff in there. If unfortunately something should die, dont replace it. And definitely dont have 3 tangs in there.

 

[beth]

IMO, you just do not have the setup needed to keep a tang. This fish neds larger tanks. Yours is too small, and heavily stocked. I'm sure this is the reason to your problem.