Please Help

[reedlog]

Okay... my problem right now is that my Yellow Tang looks like he is about to die any time now

I will attempt to add some pictures, I had to adjust the brightness/contrast, so they really dont do justice for how bad he looks.

A while ago, I had a bad case of ICH and lost just about everything aside form my eel, so I waited a long time, and then added a large sargent major, and him and the eel have been doing great. Eventually I added this yellow tang, and for few weeks he was doing good too. I then added a small huma huma who didnt make it, again, I think ICH.

So, I started to lower the salinity in my tank, thinking that I would do HYPO, since I really only have base rock so I figured it couldnt hurt anything being that there were no inverts. Yet, the yellow tang really doesnt look like he has ICH, but more of a bacterial infection (?) I am guessing after seeing pictures of diseaed fish, he has those brownish red spots on him and his fins are rotting away in spots ( I hope i can get the pictures to show up so you can see this).

After doing some reading I thought that Maracyn2 is good for treating this, but the guy at my LFS, who typically is very knowledgable told me that this is a bad idea because it will really disrupt the biological filtration and will muck up my tank, and he reccomended Melafix, and he even said that after a cuople days I should see improvement. Well, it has been 5 now and he only seems to be getting worse, and really is not eating either. I have even tried soaking his food (dried seaweed as well as flakes) in Seachem Garlic Guard hopeing that would entice him, but it hasnt.

what do I do? I'm so tired of losing fish, it seems that all I can successfully keep is this damn eel and damsel, like they are immortal or something. Thanks so much for the help.

 

[Anonymous]

Not really a fish person, but it does look bad. Has it been eating much at all? When a fish is in poor health (very skinny on you got there...), it makes it a lot harder to fight off infection.

 

[Anonymous]

Many tangs are collected with cyanide. It could just be some of the after effects, which, unfortunately kill them.

Did you feed nori or other plant based foods?

They also enjoy live brine shrimp and frozen mysis.

Sorry, but he looks beyond help.

 

[Ben1]

I agree he does look kind of beyond help. Also very, very, famished he needs to be fed much better, and some nori or the like soaked with selcon would be my first attempt to help him.

If he was cyanide caught then the digestive tract could be destroyed.

 

[fungia]

does your fish eat? i think the main problem is it looks malnurished and this can lead to other health problems.

 

[Mihai]

Many tangs are collected with cyanide. It could just be some of the after effects, which, unfortunately kill them.

Not the yellow tangs as far as I know: they come from Hawaii, and are net caught. So I don't think it's cyanide. By the looks I think that it's starving big time. Go buy a whole bunch (2-3 packs) of roasted seaweed (for sushi) from your local asian food market (also found in most large grocery stores) and feed him 1/4-1/2 of a sheet on a clip each day. If he eats he'll recover. For now he looks very bad.

M.

 

[Anonymous]

Melafix only helps early stage infections. And it does look to me like he has a nasty bacterial infection, prolly due to the stress of parasitism and starvation, the starvation could have originally been due to internal parasites. You should always quarantine new fish. How long has he been sick?? This fish should be hospital-tanked immediately, and treated with antibiotics. I believe it is too late to save him, though.

First, is he still eating? IF he is, you may save him yet, though chances are very slim. Transfer him immediately to a hospital tank, use the same water from the main tank to minimize stress. Add as much circulation as possible without overdoing it. Put some live rock into the hospital tank. The reason for this is that ammonia at this point will kill him, hence the live rock. You are NOT treating the tank just now, just giving the fish medicated dips, up to an hour at a time.

If you need info on this, I can give you directions, or you can look it up on the Net.

Soak his food in vitamins, and give him the daily antibiotic dips. IF he survives the first antibiotic treatment, you can begin to lower the salinity in the q-tank very gradually, day by day, to help fight parasites. Do NOT treat the hospital tank with any meds for the parasites just yet (aside from the lowered salinity) until you are finished treating for the bacterial infection, as fish can only tolerate so much. Copper treatment for the ich will enter his bloodstream thru the septic areas on his skin and make things worse. If the skin heals up, you can treat for any ramaining ich later on, assuming the lowered salinity doesn't do the trick.

At any rate, you do need to act right away, and it may take up to a month to heal this fish.