Yellow tang

Help!! my yellow tang is acting very weird, staying at the bottom of the tank barely moving and from time to time laying on his side. I noticed he has not been eating very much the last week. My water is Amm 0, Nitrite 0, nitrate 5ppm, ph 8.4. It is a 50 G with 40lbs rock , no visable signs of anything wrong. What could I do.

 

Did you just add it? It might be scared... How old are your test kits? Test Kits go bad after awhile. Did you acclimate him? What's in your tank? We need more information...

 

We have him a little over a month, He has always been fine untill the last few days. We also have a regal tang, two blue/yellow tail damsels, domino damsel, clown, bangai kardinal, snails, crabs, fire shrimp, cleaner shrimp. Two power heads a 30-60 aqua-tech, and marineland with single bio wheel, 50-50 light. The test kit is fairly new so should be fine.

 

It might have something to do with the oxygen. and it might be suffocating, two tangs in a 50g is alot of fish :|

 

Just the two tangs are alot, or the two tangs with all the other fish

 

I would have to agree. You have too many fish, and too little oxygen...2 Tangs is too much IMO, especially a Yellow and a Regal...I don't want to sound like I'm controlling what fish you can have or anything, but 2 tangs = problem in 50g.

 

do you have a skimmer? what is your flow like in your tank? do you have much surface agitation?

 

Two adult tangs in a 50 gallons is a bad idea, but two juveniles is ok.

It does not seem likely that the symptoms presented are due to lack of oxygen.

If you think the tang can handle the stress of transfer, I'd isolate it in a hospital tank and offer a variety of foods.

 

Too late guys, Last night when he was down on the sand bed as soon as the lights went out the worms and copepods started eating him alive . When I woke up this mourning it looks as if they ate him inside out. Anyway the regal is about 3 " and the yellow was only about 1.5" .

 

Tangs are tough and introducing a new tang that is smaller than the old salt is in for a rough road. They don't like fish that eat their favorite foods like algae so other tangs and angels better beware. I introduced my Sohol tang after I had my purple and hippo yang and they left him alone because he was bigger and tougher than they are. That isn't always the case as years ago I had a purple tang and then I introduced a bigger powder blue tang and he went right after him. The powder blue didn't have a chance. The best advice is to put all tangs in last and at the same time.