HELP 6 inch blonde naso

[saltwaterwannabe]

Today I woke to find the blonde naso wedged under a rock but still alive.  After trying to roust him he began swimming very eradically, not ablt to control himself.  I fished him out and have him in a paraguard dip while setting up a seperate qt.

I have had the 6 inch blonde naso for one week.  He acclimated for 6 hours and sat in a box in the 240 tank for about 12 hours as the new entry to meet his new tank mates.  I have had the rest of the fish in this tank for 3 weeks, which I picked up from another member 3 weeks ago.  He got along with the tank mates great and the other fish have done great so far.

As stated, all these fish are relatively new to me and are isolated.  I picked up the blonde naso since that is one fish on my most wanted list and he could be looked after with the rest of the newbies while I am monitoring them.  He has been eating fine and hanging with other larger fish in the 240, primarily a beautiful two bar rabbit.

I also tried a different naso a few weeks ago which I put in at the sane time as the other fish but I assumed he was being bullied since he was the same size as the chevron and purple tang.  This blonde naso is larger than all but the rabbit, double the size of the other tangs.  Since he and the 7 inch rabbit hang out regularly, I do not think it was aggression.

I see nothing on the naso other than the typical light stress marks I have seen on every blonde naso in every lfs, which has improved slightly since picking up from the lfs.

I checked the ph, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, and salinity, which all checked out fine.

There are about 40 fish in the tank so I feed a lot and monitor it closely.  I have no skinny fish and all food is gone within a few minutes of each feeding.  I have been ensuring there is always seeweed available in the tank.  I am feeding one big meal of V20 variety mix and a cube of blood worms nightly, which are all gone in 2 minutes, also feeding a healthy portion of algaemax and marine formula pellets in the morning with a treat of marine formula in the autofeeder twice a day.

I understand that losing fish is just part of the hobby but this is my second naso in a few weeks, so I am trying to see if I am missing something in the naso care.

Any ideas to help the blonde naso out?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

It looks like this will be chalked up to a learning experience unless he is playing dead.  I just hope there is something to learn.  All other fish look great and are acting like they do on any other day.  The only thing I can think of is that I could have kept the naso separated for a full qt period, but I am essentially running the 240 as a qt for the other 40 fish so I thought putting him in early would be nest.  I also added a copperband butterfly on day one, who is doing fine.

Any ideas or pointers on blonde naso care to prevent this in the future would be appreciated.

 

[FutureInterest]

There is always aggression when adding a new tang to a tank.  I've always printed out color pics of the existing fish and taped them to the glass all over the place.  Another member I recently visited used mirrors that he would tape to the glass and that seemed very effective.

By doing either of those it helps lessen the aggression to the new fish as they have a lot more to deal with.

I'm not saying its necessarily from aggression... but that's my guess and you could mitigate much of that issue in the future.  G'luck, my blonde naso is also one of my favorite fish, so you have good taste .  It has so much personality.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Thanks for the input.  Yea, they are beautiful fish.  As it turns out he is still struggling but alive and lying on the tank bottom gasping.  Still trying to figure it out so I took a couple pictures in a shallow qt.  He has the typical stress marks, but nothing I recognize as causing this issue.  Obviously I cannot rule out aggression as the most likely culprit but I see no injuries.  Any thoughts?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Now that I zoom in on the pics, I question if there is also ich in addition to the typical stress spots.  Since there are stress spotsn I cannot tell for sure.  Can anyone more experienced than me with naso's tell for sure from the pic?

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Wow, I have never seen a fish intentionally hug it's gill over an air bubbler.  Every now and then he takes a wreckless jaunt around the tank and returns to put his gil over the bubbler again.  It takes a few attempts, but he gets it after a while He is obviously struggling but If I did not know any better, I would say he is intentionally trying to keep air flowing through his gills.  Has anyone seen this behavior?

 

[FutureInterest]

Wow never seen that before... Pretty smart fish.  Hope he makes it.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

this thread can be deleted

 

[FutureInterest]

 

[Adam]

Sorry, I didn't see this thread earlier. My guess was Ich or Velvet. Both of which will attach to the gills, but I'm leaning towards Ich. The reason for that is if it were Velvet the whole tank would be dead by now without treatment. If the 240 is just a giant QT you might think about treating all of them with Metro and Focus mixed with the wet food you feed. This will not fix the full problem but it will kill the parasites that are actively attached to the fish. To completely eradicate Ich from the tank you'll need to do copper and that would be a HUGE PITA to do in a 240.

40 fish is quite a lot, even for a 240 and if it's Ich like I think it is then any new Tang that is stressed will likely come down with it on entry to the 240. You could QT a new fish for a month or more, but if the parasite is already in the 240 there's no doubt it will get it once you put the fish in there. With Metro/Focus in the food it will be tough for Ich to get a foot hold on the fish. Two weeks is about the max you can treat with Metro and well short of the 72 days needed to treat with copper. So basically your trying to get the fish healthy enough to build an immunity to it in that 2 week span. Sounds like Russian Roulette to me.

You only other option is to setup multiple QT tanks to hold 5 to 6 fish each and treat them with copper that way and the 240 would have to stay fallow for 3 months or be drained and sterilized.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

It was definitely ich and I unfortunately am now a long way from having a population density problem if that was part of it:-(.  I started metroplex and focus about 2 days after the naso died when I saw ich on one of the clowns.  I also started kick ich Sunday.

I can remove the two coral, anemones, and other invertebrates in the 240 then disconnect the 240 from the rest of my system if it is best.  I am in the process of setting up my permanent 210 DT, so I am setting up for some big moves already.  It would not be too challenging to separate the fish system from the non fish system other than two fish left in my 100.  If I sold a 10" sailfin that is in a system by itself I would have a tank available for the yellow tang and sleeper goby in my 100.  Others have been lost in the 100, but these two show no signs of stress so I do no want to introduce them into the 240 atm.

I have overwhelmingly heard that once you treat a tank with copper it can never be used for coral again - I have also heard this is an old wives' tale.  I have other tanks than the 240, but only a 55 that I would be OK to "poison" with copper if it is a permanent issue.  Has anyone treated a large acrylic or glass tank with copper, drained, washed, and refilled to successfully have a reef in it?

 

[Adam]

I tend to think the copper thing is a wives' tale. I believe it was thought that some of the copper would leach into the silicone. With some of the products that may actually be the case. If you use Seachem's cupramine you'll be fine just as long as there's no rock or sand, if those are in there they either need to be used in a FOLR system or discarded.

I don't know what your final stocking plan is but if you're going to be introducing more fish you'd want to kill off the parasites. What's the point of QT'ing the new fish only to put it in a system that's infested.

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

All fish are now in a 29 gal QT.  I will be moving them to my 55g as a qt this weekend.  Is it OK to run a canister filter with copper?

 

[cbj25isback]

Yes to the canister and copper

 

[saltwaterwannabe]

Thanks!