Dead yellow tang

[Jmcg89]

So I bought a small yellow biota tang two days ago and was in the process of doing ttm on him with a pair of clowns.
I did the first transfer this morning and all was well and I go to check on them this afternoon and the tang is breathing very heavy and not moving well. I never saw the clowns bother him but thought maybe they were so i went to put and egg crate in to divide the tank and as i scooted him to the other side he died right there....
At the LFS he was in a tank with a very sick looking fish but he seemed to be acting ok and i thought with the QT i could see and treat any issues.
Could he die that quickly from flukes or somthing along those lines?? He has no spots on him or anything like that, the only thing i could see is what looked like somthing stringy coming from his gills.
Very sad and hoping it wasnt the clowns that bullied him to death but his fins look the same as they did when he came home and i Never saw them chase him..
Any ideas?

 

[Jmcg89]

Today was the day i was going to dose the first round of prazipro and i sure hope he didnt die from flukes but im at a loss

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Today was the day i was going to dose the first round of prazipro and i sure hope he didnt die from flukes but im at a loss

Sorry to hear about your tang.

I would contact the store. This was an expensive fish, and if they had sick fish in with it, then all bets are off as to what happened to it. They should at least be given a chance to cover this loss, even partial credit.

Do you know the specific gravity/salinity of the dealer's tank compared to yours? I see a lot of acclimation issues when dealers hold there fish at 1.020 and then folks try to acclimate them to full salinity at home - that causes fish to dehydrate, and smaller, thinner fish (like Biota tangs) have more of an issue with this.

Jay

 

[Jmcg89]

Yea the salinity was at 1.02 and i had brought him up to 1.025 over the course of an hour or so maybe, he was in 1.025 for about 48 hours before he died, He was very small.
No luck with the fish store on that front... thanks for the reply

 

[Jmcg89]

He was very docile and really didnt swim as much as i would expect the whole time, but he did pick at some nori and pellets the first day.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Yea the salinity was at 1.02 and i had brought him up to 1.025 over the course of an hour or so maybe, he was in 1.025 for about 48 hours before he died, He was very small.
No luck with the fish store on that front... thanks for the reply

Sorry - that is likely too large of a rise for a small YT to go through in an hour. One trick is to drop the salinity of the destination tank to 1.020, then acclimate the new fish over, then gradually bring up the salinity of that tank up over 2 days or so. For small fish, I try not to raise the specific gravity more than 1.003 units in 24 hours. Oddly, you can drop the specific gravity much faster, the fish tolerate that just fine.

Jay

 

[Jmcg89]

Sorry - that is likely too large of a rise for a small YT to go through in an hour. One trick is to drop the salinity of the destination tank to 1.020, then acclimate the new fish over, then gradually bring up the salinity of that tank up over 2 days or so. For small fish, I try not to raise the specific gravity more than 1.003 units in 24 hours. Oddly, you can drop the specific gravity much faster, the fish tolerate that just fine.

Jay

Appreciate that, ill be much more careful about that in the future thats for sure.