Came home to a sick sailfin

[apipkin]

I have a sailfin tang that has been in my tank for quite some time. I came home this morning to find him almost motionless. I noticed this as quite odd, because normally when I come home, he's the first to greet me. He has since made his way to corner of the tank closest to me, where he will normally swim when I'm on the couch. I noticed that he has several small holes in his dorsal and tail fins and there is a large red spot below his left eye, between his mouth and gill. His gills are still moving and he seems to be happy still, just not moving. I'd really like to see him swimming again, but I'm not sure what I am suppose to do here :-/ Any thoughts?

 

[ringo®]

What else is in the tank? Sounds like something is beating him up.

 

[apipkin]

I have a scissor tail goby, a snowflake clownfish, a Lawnmower Blenny, a regal blue tang, an Atlantic blue tang, a skunk shrimp, a few emerald crabs, two turbo snails, a few bumblebee snails and a variety of corals. They are all in a Red Sea Max 250 with live rock and live sand. I even recently started getting some purple growth; which seems to be good from what I read.

All three tangs were introduced together and have been together for at least two months.

 

[ringo®]

Sounds like tang on tang crime to me. The tang police should be along any minute now.

 

[apipkin]

Haha, anything I should be doing in the mean time?

 

[ringo®]

I know it's not the answer you want to hear, but you should rehome them all. As cool as they are, they need really big tanks.

 

[mcphock]

True story

 

[apipkin]

They are still relatively small, only about 2.5 or 3 inches long. I was under the impression that they would be fine until they were larger (at least a year or so). Is this not the case?

 

[rjrgroup]

3 Tangs in a 65 gal. is not good especially a sailfin and atlantic blue. Most folks will tell you 1 tang is too much for a 65 gal tank...research some of the smaller tangs, scopas, tommini(sp?) yellow eye kole.

 

[ralph atl]

it's too small a space for 3 tangs and at some point one or more has become territorial and there you go....

 

[stacy22]

There is no tang suitable for a 65 gallon tank. I urge you to rehome the tangs that you have. The aggression will likely continue to escalate.