Dory fish swimming sideways

reefle

Active Member
I received a small blue hippo tang, blenny, and Flame angel today. Acclimated all three to the QT tank using the drip process and waited almost 2 hours. Flame and blenny are doing perfectly fine, but my hippo is floating/swimming sideways. When he was in the acclimation bin he wasnt looking so hot too.

any idea what is wrong/what I can do to make it better?
 

Oxylebius

Well-Known Member
It can be a number of health problems causing this behavior. Is the hippo showing any other ill signs? Like hyperbreathing, discoloration, loss of scales, bloatedness or thinness. It may be having problems w/its swim bladder.
 

reefle

Active Member
It can be a number of health problems causing this behavior. Is the hippo showing any other ill signs? Like hyperbreathing, discoloration, loss of scales, bloatedness or thinness. It may be having problems w/its swim bladder.

The color seems fine, no loss of scales or fins. It's not fat and not skinny enough where I can see the bones. I'll have to check on the breathing when i go home from work in 2 hours. Had to acclimate, put them in watch them for an hour and then go back to work. People are saying hippos are just really stressed after shipment and do funny things like this in the beg. but Idk :(

if it is a swimming bladder problem. what should I do?
 

Oxylebius

Well-Known Member
Issues with the swim bladder can be caused by many things (internal disease, parasites, or physical damage), sometimes they can heal on their own with good WQ, food, and time. But, if it is a disease, then the outcome is not that good. It is hard to treat sick fish if you don't know what is causing it.

Give us an update when you get back home. As you said, it just might have been stress.
 

DaveK

Well-Known Member
Hippo tang are a strange fish in that they will often hide or swim off angle. Sometimes this is perfectly normal, and just a little stress from moving the fish. At the same time, the fish is a tang and can have some disease problems, as noted above, so keep an eye on things.

BTW, you do realize that the minimum tank size for a hippo tank is about 150 gal? start planning a major upgrade now. They do grow fairly fast.
 

reefle

Active Member
Hippo tang are a strange fish in that they will often hide or swim off angle. Sometimes this is perfectly normal, and just a little stress from moving the fish. At the same time, the fish is a tang and can have some disease problems, as noted above, so keep an eye on things.

BTW, you do realize that the minimum tank size for a hippo tank is about 150 gal? start planning a major upgrade now. They do grow fairly fast.

ahhh 150?!?! I heard 75 was good enough. It's a baby at only 2 inches right now, so I hoped a 46 would be good enough for at least half a year. Then I was planning on going to a 90 as my next upgrade.
 

reefle

Active Member
All my fish were breathing pretty heavily and I think I have a faulty heater, because it was really warm in there. took the heater out, changed about 15% of the water to make it cooler, added the airstone. What else can I do to make it cooler? Should I risk the phosphates and whatever and add an ice cube?
 

reefle

Active Member
Is this the tank that just got a reboot from ich?

No this is QT tank #2 to stock my new 46 gallon that is halfway through running its biological filter. I calculated it so that by the time, the biological filter is done running (should be around a little over a month) my new fish will be out of their QT (a little under a month)
 
No this is QT tank #2 to stock my new 46 gallon that is halfway through running its biological filter. I calculated it so that by the time, the biological filter is done running (should be around a little over a month) my new fish will be out of their QT (a little under a month)

Wouldn't of thought you'd use the old tank that fast but had to ask lol. Temp can cause issues for sure as can off chemistry. Good luck with it, sounds like you're working all the angles. :wave:
 

reefle

Active Member
Wouldn't of thought you'd use the old tank that fast but had to ask lol. Temp can cause issues for sure as can off chemistry. Good luck with it, sounds like you're working all the angles. :wave:

yeah It was too hard not to have anything in my old tank so its just a sitting invert/coral tank now. I have around 175 gallons of water running through 6 different tanks right now haha...my room is no longer "my room"
 

reefer gladness

Well-Known Member
ahhh 150?!?! I heard 75 was good enough. It's a baby at only 2 inches right now, so I hoped a 46 would be good enough for at least half a year. Then I was planning on going to a 90 as my next upgrade.

150-180 gallons minimum for a blue tang. People will tell you anything to make a sale...
 

Oxylebius

Well-Known Member
Set up a fan to blow on he surface of the water to cool the tank down.

How is it going now? What are the tank parameters? What behaviors are the fish showing?
 
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