Hey guys so I bought a 3-4" hippo tang Monday and have it my QT which is a 10 gallon but I just went to Petco and picked up a 20L to give her more room. For the most part she looks okay, when I put some flake food in there she goes after it. Couple of things: 1. When she is not eating she is lays on her side a lot, is this normal for tangs? 2. I had the 10 gallon running for a couple of weeks with water from my DT with a few pieces of live rock and a AquaClear 20. Before I put the tang in AM NI NA were all 0, today AM is between .25 and .5, am I going through a cyle? I just took out the bio media from the AC 20 and put it in my sump to see if I can get some bacteria and also took an extra piece of live rock from my fuge and put it in the 10 any other ideas? Will putting the 10 gallons and 10 new gallons of water in the 20 help?
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Hippo Tang
- Thread starter shawn708
- Start date
if you have ammonia...that is bad. QT has to be stable like the DT. I would put a couple of pieces of live rock from your display if you can. I would go get some amquel to neutralize the ammonia. Make sure the QT has plenty of aeration and hiding places. I would keep any lights off to minimize stress right now.
Even a QT of 20 gallons will require constant testing for ammonia. Feeding the fish and the waste the tang produces creates more ammonia. Do a lot of small water changes and like wrassefan said, maybe try some Amquel to help.
new2saltyfish
Non-member
Hippos always lay on their side though fyi. I wouldn't worry about it.
You don't want to put anything from the QT back into your DT. That defeats the purpose.
jofost1216
Non-member
Hey shawn i have had a blue hippo tang for about 6 months now, in regards to their healthy activity they can have a very strange personality once they're comfortable in the tank. I have mine in a 56 gal, the hippo is about 4 inches. It sleeps on the sand in a alligator skull at night and rests either on its side on the sand or against rocks throughout the day. I used to think that it was sick because it sometimes looks like the behavior of a sick fish. I'm not saying all is well but if your water parameters show correct and it is eating daily and looks healthy this could be a possibility.
Thanks guys for all the tips and advice, I was not plan on returning the piece of live rock to the fuge of my DT when done I was just going to let it sit and let mother nature take its course over time. I moved her to the 20 gallon yesterday and she looked much happier and a lot less lying down. I was putting in a small amount of flake food at a time to make sure she ate it and not contribute to the ammonia issue and she ate quite a bit but is not interested in the garlic soaked piece of seaweed I got in there. This morning I tested ammonia and it seems to have dropped and nitrites are still at 0 but will keep a close eye and do small water changes every few days. Now that she is not laying down as much she picked up a new habit of grazing herself against the live rock, again is this normal or could it be a sign of a parasite?
Bit of an update. On Friday I thought for sure I was going to lose her, she was laying on her side breathing rapidly through one gill only and laying on the glass in the corner of the tank not moving even when I would move my hands on the outside of the tank. I did close to a 50% water change, cleaned the filter (should have done that sooner, first time using a QT and never thought to clean it out but it was dirty), added some Amquel I picked up from Petco, and put a towel over the tank to see if that would ease her a little and also prevent my son from coming home and saying daddy Dori is dead. Well to my delight when I got home later that day she was swimming around again. Battle is still not over as she is still swimming around but I'm trying to get her to eat again. I've got some seaweed soaked in garlic that she has never had interest in and still putting a little bit of flake food but she has no interest in that either. She is not skinny but would like to meet her up again and get her healty. Any thoughts?
is she picking on rocks or sand or anything like that?
Yeah same flakes I'm trying to give her now but trying not to feed to much to bring the amonia up again, also I've been turning the power head on and off especially when she wasn't doing so well so she wouldn't stress out to much so the flakes aren't floating around as much. I have tried to turn it on briefly while the food is in there to get her to eat but nothing. I tried mysis as well but no interest and I think thats what contributed to the intitial amonia spike that freaked her out.
She's in QT so no sand bed and only 1 piece of rock from DT that I've sacrificied to try and bring good bacteria to the QT.
Tangs are herbivores, you really should be feeding her nori sheets on a veggie clip. Flake food is just going to contribute to your problems with water parameters. And fyi, lying on their side is a sign of stress. Hippo tangs especially need lots of swimming room (recommended tank size for a hippo, even a juvenile, is 180g minimum) - anything less is just going to increase their stress level and ultimately shorten their lifespan.
And, there is no point in QTing her unless you are actively treating her with copper or hyposalinity. QTing by itself does nothing to prevent her from bringing disease into your DT.
And, there is no point in QTing her unless you are actively treating her with copper or hyposalinity. QTing by itself does nothing to prevent her from bringing disease into your DT.
higorc
Call me IGOR :)
I would get some Ammo-Lock from API or Amquel to make any ammonia in the Quarantine tank non-toxic. That might be stressing her.
+1 on the Veggi clip. I would try feeding her some meaty food as well. Like Clams, scallops or squid. These pieces are a little bigger, so what ever she doesn't eat, you can remove from the quarantine tank. Pellets and flakes degrade water quality really fast if not eaten.
+1 on the Veggi clip. I would try feeding her some meaty food as well. Like Clams, scallops or squid. These pieces are a little bigger, so what ever she doesn't eat, you can remove from the quarantine tank. Pellets and flakes degrade water quality really fast if not eaten.
I thought, from what I've been reading, that the reason for a QT is to monitor for disease and then treat not the other way around where you start treating them right away. With a tang I was looking specifically for ich but also looking at her for anything else that looks funny. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.
The Amquel I think is what pulled her out of that 1 day shock where she would not move, after a water changed dosed some of that and within a few hours she was at least moving again. I have a veggie clip with some garlic soaked seaweed from Petco but she doesn't seem interested. Is nori better and if so where can I get it?
Here is a great thread on how to do a QT:
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums.../23584-fish-quarantine-process-step-step.html
I would not put any live rock in the tank and do daily WC's since the tank is a little small for a tang. Lee (the guy who wrote the thread) recommends only to proactively treat the acanthurus sp of tangs, other than that you should do as you are doing and observe the fish to see if anything develops. The issue I see here is that the QT tank is small and not a healthy environment for the fish which makes it challenging. As others have said, feed nori or live marine based algale if you can get it and treat the food with vitamins and a soak such as selcon.
http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums.../23584-fish-quarantine-process-step-step.html
I would not put any live rock in the tank and do daily WC's since the tank is a little small for a tang. Lee (the guy who wrote the thread) recommends only to proactively treat the acanthurus sp of tangs, other than that you should do as you are doing and observe the fish to see if anything develops. The issue I see here is that the QT tank is small and not a healthy environment for the fish which makes it challenging. As others have said, feed nori or live marine based algale if you can get it and treat the food with vitamins and a soak such as selcon.
higorc
Call me IGOR :)
I don't think nori would be any better.
They get very skittish when they r in a quarantine tank. If u don't have already, u should get some PVC pipes big enough for her to hide in, cut them and put that in the tank. Make sure u don't leave any sharp corners. Also the tank should be bare bottom. I currently have a Desjardine Tang in quarantine. I have had him for a while in there and he won't go for the Veggie clip if he sees me around the tank. Only when I walk away he goes for it. I don't know if u have a background (black or blue) on the tank, but it would help too. Some people even wrap it on the sides as well leaving only the front to minimize startling the fish when walking by the tank.
Higor's EVO 3D
Here are a couple of links that should be helpful in understanding ich/ick, how to prevent/treat/manage it, and how to run a QT tank. If you are QTing for a couple of weeks and the parasite doesn't show up in that period of time, it is not necessarily safe to presume the fish isn't a carrier. Many fish can live with ich but only show symptoms when stressed (for example from being in a small tank, being bullied, poor water quality, etc.). Unless you have actively treated every fish you've ever put in your DT for ich, chances are that you have the parasite in your tank already and treating/QTing new fish won't prevent them from picking it up again once they go in your DT. Yes, tangs are far more susceptable to showing the ich parasite, but they can also live healthy lives and fight it off if given the right environment. And some are simply far more prone to developing it than others (powder brown/blue tangs are notorious). Anyhow, here are the links, I hope they are useful:
http://www.livingreefs.com/oh-no-have-ich-do-do-t30950.html
http://www.livingreefs.com/hyposalinity-treatment-ich-t29672.html
http://www.livingreefs.com/copper-101-a-t29680.html
http://www.livingreefs.com/oh-no-have-ich-do-do-t30950.html
http://www.livingreefs.com/hyposalinity-treatment-ich-t29672.html
http://www.livingreefs.com/copper-101-a-t29680.html
In my opinion, if you put a fish in a qt, you should treat them at the same time regardless fish was sick or no sick
Everytime i buy a new fish, i put them in the qt and medicate them for 5 weeks
After 5 weeks and if i do not see anything on them, they go in the dt
If they do not make it after 5 weeks they go in the garbage
One time i qt a hippo in my 20g long with copper for 5 weeks, the black dot stuffs on the fish did not go away. I tool her out and dipped with fresh water once a day for 3 days and throw her in my dt after 3 days
The black dot seems to go away once the fish in the dt
So sometimes qt can make the fish sick too
Everytime i buy a new fish, i put them in the qt and medicate them for 5 weeks
After 5 weeks and if i do not see anything on them, they go in the dt
If they do not make it after 5 weeks they go in the garbage
One time i qt a hippo in my 20g long with copper for 5 weeks, the black dot stuffs on the fish did not go away. I tool her out and dipped with fresh water once a day for 3 days and throw her in my dt after 3 days
The black dot seems to go away once the fish in the dt
So sometimes qt can make the fish sick too
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