Blue Tang Emergency

Hamsnacks · Dec 28, 2019

Had a deal with a local seller to buy a Blue Tang, about a $50 saving vs store.
Show up and this fish looks absolutely horrible!
Long story short the *** says you either take it as is for the price we agreed on or it stays with me for the rest of its life.
I just felt bad for the fish, so I bought it.

Now I'm guessing it's a very bad case of HLLE.

My gameplan is to just put it a proper tank with proper conditions and feed it quality food and hopefully nature will take care of the rest.

My issue is I don't have a QT tank, not hard to set up, but I was wondering would it be safe to put it in my Display tank, I feel like it would feel safer in there and have other tank mates or even in the sump?

Do you think it can go back to how a Tang should look like?
Or I hate to ask, do you think it would be better to just put it down?

Any other tips or advice?

Thanks in advane

Kzang · Dec 28, 2019

Holy ****. That's pretty bad. You shouldn't of bought it. I'm not an expert, but it most likely will be permanently disfigured when it heals. Most of the fins are gone. Brutal way to treat an animal

I wouldn't put it in your tank. If the piece of **** cares as little for that tang as he does, it probably has something.

I'd keep it in a QT. Go to pet co and get a 10g tank. You will probably want to throw some antibiotics at it for the wounds

LAReefer4Life · Dec 29, 2019

That it so terrible. Poor fish

There looks like several issues going on here so I highly advise you don't place him in your Display. Most likely HLLE along with bacterial infections and fin rot.

Do you know if he is consuming food?

Get a small QT tank and administer trifecta of kanaplex, metroplex, and furan2.

Hamsnacks · Dec 29, 2019

pathot984 said:
That it so terrible. Poor fish

There looks like several issues going on here so I highly advise you don't place him in your Display. Most likely HLLE along with bacterial infections and fin rot.

Do you know if he is consuming food?

Get a small QT tank and administer trifecta of kanaplex, metroplex, and furan2.

I tried to feed when I switched him into a clean bucket of water but no luck, I'm assuming the stress of being caught, travel and then transfered into a different bucket didn't help.

Unfortunately Meds are not really an option anymore here in Canada. They've pretty much banned them and if you want some you'd have to take your fish to a vet for a check up and a prescription, so ridiculous.

But I put him in a quarantine tank and did a dosage of Nox-Ich. It's suppose to cure Ich, Velvet, Fin Rot and other parasitic infections. I'm going to do that for the 3 recommended days and then I think I may take my chances with him in the display tank to get better.

What's odd is the 2 other fish I got with him are a clown fish and a fire goby and honestly they look real good, no physical defects on them. So I'm assuming this guy was in the tank from the start.
After the meds if they all survive I think I just want to put them in a healthy large tank and hopefully they'll all do well.

Correct me if I'm wrong but HLLE isn't contagious and if the other fish aren't infected, maybe he just has some serious scars.