HELP! Need help with my yellow tang.

Nroddot

New Member
Hi,

I've had this yellow tang for seven months now in a 100 gallon tank. It has always done well, very active and readily takes food.


A little over a month ago I saw some white scrapes on both sides of the fish near its tail. A little concerning, but I figured it just scraped itself against a rock or something and it would clear up.

Here I am over a month later and the scrapes are still there. There's no redness to them and they're not getting worse, but they're not getting better either.

Just a couple days ago, I've also noticed a small portion of the tang's dorsal fin has some redness to it and it almost looks like it's eroding away.

Over the last 5-6 days, my tang has been acting rather mellow. It's not as active as it used to be and spends most of the day just hanging out in the back of the tank. However, it still very readily eats food and swims around in a frenzy during feeding time. The tang also seeks out the cleaner shrimp in my tank quite often and sits by it. But my cleaner shrimp doesn't "clean" any of my fish for whatever reason so it won't touch the tang.

I tried to get a picture, but it's quite difficult to do when the tang sits in the back of the tank most of the day, and when it is up front, it gets scared and hides when I get to close to the glass for a picture. I've circled the "scrape" near its tail and the redness in its dorsal fin. I know it's not the easiest to see, but is anyone able to give me an idea of what is going on here?


What I'm currently doing is soaking Omega One seaweed strips in Seachem Garlic Guard and feeding them to the tang. I am also using Metroplex and focus and mixing that into some frozen food for the tang.
 

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PSU4ME

JoePa lives on!!!
Staff member
PREMIUM
I don’t see a huge issue in the pic but redness can indicate a bacterial infection. Metro is good to use but hopefully others can chime in
 

Humblefish

Active Member
I don’t see a huge issue in the pic but redness can indicate a bacterial infection. Metro is good to use but hopefully others can chime in

+1 It sounds like the fish is battling a lingering bacterial infection, but the reclusiveness might also indicate a parasitic infestation such as Velvet.

@Nroddot Are you noticing any behavioral symptoms of velvet?
  • Reduced or complete loss of appetite.
  • Heavy breathing, scratching, flashing, head twitching, erratic swimming behavior (unfortunately velvet shares all these same symptoms with ich & gill flukes.)
  • Swimming into the flow of a water pump/wavemaker/powerhead (unique to velvet).
  • Acting reclusive (velvet causes fish to be sensitive to light).
 

Nroddot

New Member
+1 It sounds like the fish is battling a lingering bacterial infection, but the reclusiveness might also indicate a parasitic infestation such as Velvet.

@Nroddot Are you noticing any behavioral symptoms of velvet?
  • Reduced or complete loss of appetite.
  • Heavy breathing, scratching, flashing, head twitching, erratic swimming behavior (unfortunately velvet shares all these same symptoms with ich & gill flukes.)
  • Swimming into the flow of a water pump/wavemaker/powerhead (unique to velvet).
  • Acting reclusive (velvet causes fish to be sensitive to light).

Thank you for the response.

To answer your question,

The tang still has a great appetite. It does occasionally pick algae from the rock and goes crazy during feeding time. Breathing seems pretty normal.

I have seen the tang occasionally rub itself against rocks in the past. But it has been awhile since I last noticed this behavior. My tank is in the office, so I'm with it about 8-9 hours per day and I have not seen the tang scratch itself since 3-4 weeks ago.

The tang doesn't swim into the flow from powerheads. I've never seen it do anything like that.
 
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