my yellow tang has red streaks

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Devonvincent98

Member
I have a 29 gallon tank reef tank with a firefish, a yellow tang, and two clownfish ad some coral but my yellow tang has red streaks going down his side and middle of his body I just added a sump to my tank and a new light so I thought it was just stress and I don't have a quarantine so ive been treating it from inside my display and Ive been using melafix. how do I get rid of it. my ammonia and nitrites are 0 and my nitrates are high probably about 60 and all the others like the alk and ph are normal. I don't have a rodi filter so ive been using tap water with the tap water detoxifier and everything seemed fine for the past two months till now. my house has very hard water and that hasn't seemed to harm them. my nitrates just wnt seem to go down so im thinking about getting some nitrate reducer and im about to get a protein skimmer and a submarine uv sterilizer. please what can I do to save him.
 
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Devonvincent98

Member
devonvincent98-albums-pictures-picture24896-photo.JPG

I know its a bad picture but that's the best one I can get
 
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Elizabeth94

Elizabeth94

Member
When I had freshwater tanks one of my fish developed red streaks so I researched it a bit. Idk if it is the same for saltwater fish but I would guess Viral hemorrhagic septicemia. The base of the fins turn red-ish in a lot of cases.. However, the picture is kind of blurry and I am not the most experienced fish keeper so deff wait for others to chime in. (does look like the fins are turning red near the body though). I wish you luck and hope it is not what I said, many fish do not survive the illness.
 
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DaveK

Well-Known Member
This looks like an infection, but it may be injury. I would remove the tang to a quarantine tank and treat it with antibiotics. Usually when you see this sort of thing, the fish is in serious trouble. It's critical to move fast.

Next see this article on tang keeping - http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/just-starting-out-sw-beginners/566-so-you-want-tang.html

I'm not trying to play "tang police" but your system is no where near what is required for a yellow tang. I suggest that if you are lucky enough to cure your tang, either invest in a system large enough to house him, or sell, trade or give him away.

This tang requires about a 100 gal tank as a minimum. I would also highly recommend getting that RO/DI unit, especially since you have hard water. The high nitrates are most likely because your overfeeding and/or not keeping up with water changes. Also, tangs are big messy fish, so you need to consider that also. Yes, your usually to need a large powerful skimmer on a tank with a tang in it. I'd say that the long term use of nitrate remover is not needed, unless your talking about some of these newer methods using biopellets. The other media may make a temporary dent in the nitrate problem, but long term you will need to control nitrates by other means. UV light are not needed except for very specific problems.

Tank size and water quality are key to keeping this fish.
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
I second Dave's opinion. I believe it looks like a systemic bacterial infection. If it is a bacterial infection, the Melafix won't do any good. Unlike the label states, it does not actually treat against bacterial infections, but makes it easier for real treatments to work. It sooth's wounds and others, but does not heal them on it's own. Also I feel that I should warn you that Melafix is not proven to be 100% reef safe and many complained about it as it's mentioned on the label.(just google it to see what I mean)

Couple of questions:

1) How active is your tang now compared to before?
2) Is the tang eating and what are you feeding it?
3) Could you post your salinity, pH and alkalinity values. If possible dating back 2 weeks till now.
4) How long has the nitrate level been at 60?
 
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Devonvincent98

Member
He is the same swimming around like normal.
My tang is eating everything even the hair algae off the rock and I'm feeding him ocean nutrition green marine algae and it has natural garlic extract and I'm feeding mysis and flake food the ocean nutrition prime reef flakes. I feed mysis every morning and flakes in the afternoon and I give him a piece of seaweed every day
Salinity is 1.023
Ph 8.4
Alk. 300
And they've been the same for awhile
My nitrates have been like that for a long time I don't know why I do 20 percent water changes everywhere now it was every two weeks and I even blow off the rock but nothing please help
And the melafix bottle says it gets rid of the red streaks and blotches
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
Salinity is ok but in the future I would raise it to 1.025. Not now though, increasing it now would be even more stressful for your tang imo. The lower the salinity now, the less energy he needs to put into osmoregulation.
Though what is the "Alk 300"? ppm CaCO3 or in what are you expressing it? Alkalinity needs to be between 7-12dKH/ 2.5-4 meq/L or 125-200 ppm CaCO3.

I would do a 10% or more WC every week till you get the nitrates under control.

Melafix...well I don't want to get started about that product really. Imo it's wrongly advertised as a cure, which it is not. It's a good by-product to use while you are using a product to cure.
I would start with real antibiotics like Maracyn Two for Saltwater fish. It's a broad-spectrum antibiotic that kills both systemic bacteria, as well as bacteria that are on the skin itself.

You need to move him to a QT though and keep salinity the same or lower as your main tank. You CANNOT treat him in your main tank as most (if not all) antibiotics are not reef safe and will kill other good bacteria in your reef.
 
nanoreefing4fun

nanoreefing4fun

Well-Known Member
RS STAFF
extracted from the link Mike posted above... Mike or anyone - what would be a brand name of this... ? "anti-bacterial laced food "

Acclimation Stress - Often confused with an internal bacterial disease which appears very similar, the improper acclimation of marine fish can cause capillary congestion leading to the rupture of the capillarys through sudden exposure to higher salinity levels. This is most often seen with newly purchased fish that have not been acclimated very slowly, as in days long periods to higher salinity or when replacement water is above the aquarium's salinity when performing a large water change. As long as the fish is eating properly and it develops no other problems, it should heal in due time and recover. If the fish develops such red markings in the absence of salinity changes then I would suspect a bacterial infection due to poor water quality and the fish should be removed and treated by feeding it an anti-bacterial laced food while taking steps to get the organic levels of the aquarium under control.
 
ReefingFun

ReefingFun

Member
nanoreefing4fun said:
extracted from the link Mike posted above... Mike or anyone - what would be a brand name of this... ? "anti-bacterial laced food "
Click to expand...

Dr.Gill's Marine Medicated Fish Food. I believe this is one of the few ones that use such things.
Though unless I'm mistaken, I think they removed most of these products out of the market. The over-use was making several bacteria strains immune after a while.
 
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DaveK

Well-Known Member
Devonvincent98 said:
...l.
... I'm feeding him ocean nutrition green marine algae and it has natural garlic extract and I'm feeding mysis and flake food the ocean nutrition prime reef flakes. I feed mysis every morning and flakes in the afternoon and I give him a piece of seaweed every day
...
My nitrates have been like that for a long time I don't know why ...
Click to expand...

The correlation here should be obvious, once I put the two factors side by side.

You are way overfeeding, by a factor of about 4. To give you an example, I feed my reef about 2 - 3 times a week, and I've got a yellow tank and a hipo tank in it. That is about all you need provided you don't have fish that demand constant feeding, such as anthias damsels.

One way or another start feeding much less food. For larger fish like tangs, I would also avoid the flake foods, and use a small pellet food. Flakes tend to come apart easily an get sucked into the filtration system. Note - If you have very small fish such as neon gobies, they you may need a fine food such as flakes, but feed carefully.
 
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