Unresolved Jv Yellow Tang Acting Wierd

its wierd for him anyway... i got him about 3 weeks ago. the first week he hid in a cave i made for him and darted away any time i came near the tank. The second week he was a lot more social and the last week very social, occaisionally swimming by just to look at me but the last couple days I noticed he has been more active darting around the rocks like he almost rubs against them or wants to have his sides scratched. He does his normal 400 laps at night back and forth and today he is hanging out at the top of the tank in the filter stream. Like he is swimming against the current. He has been there all day. He is super funny, loads of personality but this for him is not normal and if there is a problem I want to deal with it preemtively.

My tank is 55g, i have all baby fish in this tank; yellow tang, 2 jv clowns, 2 chomis, 4 snails, 4 crabs. about 50-55lbs of live rock another 10 in live sand. amonia 0, nitrates 0, nitrites 0, ph 8.2 temp 78. Everybody seems really happy.

the only changes i have made in the last week are i lowered the temp from 80 to 78 and i raised the salinity from 1.022 to about 1.024 a week ago. Today I added 5more lbs of live rock and 3 more lbs of live sand and built up the area on the opposite side of his cave. I didn't touch his cave but i did add some live plants on the outside.

I don't know if this is an oxygen thing, a stress thing, everyone seems pretty happy but he has been swimming in the current of the filter for hours and he is normally down in his cave or near the bottom of the tank. The fish are spening more time at the top of the tank maybe I need to raise the temp? I have good water aggitation - aqua clear 300 moves the other fish down and I have tubes blowing bubbles in the middle and sides. Anyone have any thoughts that might help me figure this mystery out?

 

rubbing against rocks? Ich or some other type of parasite/disease.

Is the tang eating? How is his breathing.....gills going fast etc? I had a fish that would absolutely love to play in the current, so maybe he is just dong that or if he has ich maybe it feels better? My fish would swim upto my Koralia 8 head on, then stop turn sideways and get blown across to the other side of the tank. He would do that for hours at a time

 

Thanks for the quick reply Schackmel... nope no signs of ick, normal breathing and normal eating. He has been eating more in the last week.

 

My first thought was ich as well. I would think as long as he is eating well he should be okay. How did you acclimate? Any quarrantine?

 

even through the changes you made were not big to you to the tang they may be big, adding rock and plants may have upset him a little i believe he will be ok in a couple of days

 

i aclimated him by letting him sit in the bag and added some of my water then let him loose. I dont see any signs of parasites - altho i am far from an expert - his eyes look normal fins in tact. I dont see any spots on him. I got him some kelp which he ignores and i feed them spirolina cubes soaked in garlic - just one at night. he is still up there swimming and he is letting me put my fingers in to almost touch his top fin before he swims away. You think he is pissed about the rocks and plants? bored?

 

feed him as much as he will eat... may be getting malnourished with just one cube a day...

 

ill give them another one now... they love these cubes with a few drops of garlic. they all go nuts for it.

 

I just wanted to let you guys know my tang didn't make it. That next morning after my post he was still swimming in the water stream and I went out and got a smaller tank and transfered water to set up a hospital tank so I could treat him with copper based medicines. He just grew more letharic but I never really saw spots on him. It was very sad and the guy at my LFS told me he thought it was something called velvet. Anyway, if anyone else sees this maybe they will know to treat their fish a day faster than I did. It was confusing becuase he was eating so well and swimming around and seeming happy. Even after adding more food (I had actually cut back to one cube because there was always so much food left over) he ate again but not a lot. Anyway, this behavior was wierd FOR HIM and I guess if you watch your fish enough you learn what is normal for them. And I think James was right, maybe adjusting the temerpature one week - even tho it was two degrees and the next week raising the salinty even by only .002 was too much for him. All my other fish are doing fine. I'm really sad.... I loved that fish. I hope this helps someone else.

 

man that is a total bummer, I am sorry to hear for your loss. I too like my juv tang and would hate to have anything happen to him. Good News, there's more fish in the sea (pun intended)
I know it's not what you want hear though I am trying to make it a little less sad for you,