Blue Spotted Tang

[Stuart.Wiltshire]

Hi,

I am a newcomer to this hobby. please bear with me. I have recently aquired my first fish, a blue spotted tang, it is approximatley 5 inches head to toe. He has beein my tank for two days now, seems lively and is making the rights signs with feeding etc...

The problem is within two hours of him arriving in my tank, he turned a brownie colour and remains. Am i doing something wrong, is he stressed, what should i do?

95 gallon sumped tank parametres are. SG 1.025, temp 24, amm = 0 nitrites = less than 3, nitrates = less than 10.

 

[n3ont3tra]

Are you sure you did the nitrite test correctly? A cycled tank shouldn't have any nitrates, so that's a problem. How much rock do you have, if any? The color changing is usually stress, from what I've read. Also, tangs are very susceptible to ich, so watch out for that and know how to treat it.

Oh, and I've never heard of a blue spotted tang... can you post a pic?

 

[kkyyllee]

if you have nitrites than that would be ur problem

 

[Stuart.Wiltshire]

Thanks for replies.

I did more tests yesterday, AMM = 0 Nitrites = less than 3, Nitrates = 25. I did 25% water change and tested nitrates findings were 10 again.

I have about 50 kg of live rock, tank has been cycled around 5-6 weeks. I started with clean up crew, there are 20 snails now, sea hare, 6 red legged hermits, 5 dancing shrimp 1 small star and 4 glass shrimp Snakelock aneome which devided within two days of landing in the tank.

The jorney back from collecting the fish was epic. it was 2 1/2 hours, i did rush aclimatisation, i immedatly added more water to the bag and left it for a good 3/4 hour to get temp correct, fish seemed happy pecking at the algea and any passing particles.

It fed within hours some broken up prawn. I have not fed the tank since saturday, concerned i may have increased the nitrates, perhaps overfeeding. the fish seems happy enough, its almost like he has blended/camorflarged into the surroundings. i have plans to add some more livestock, however, i am worried something isnt right, but am not sure.

I will post some pictures, a google search will bring up plenty of the species.

Regards,
Stuart

 

[bambam]

before you add anymore livestock you should get your nitrites/nitrates checked out for sure, they should be as low as possibly..... any nitrites are bad so you should have zero

 

[Stuart.Wiltshire]

The previous owner of the blue spotted tang, told me that this fish habitually changes colour, when its really happy it turns the light blue. which does suggest that the brown colour equals unhappiness. I added his mate a yellow tang, today, it appears that they are paired. As soon as they met, he turned light blue again, changing brown to blue instantly.

They havent left each others side, its like true love.

I suspect i am being overly cautious and worrying too much. Thats what the LFS said also.

I obviously want to bring the nitrates down to zero, the amm and nitrites are there and have been for some time. correct me here, if i overfeed, the nitrates are bound to rise, if the amm and nitrites stay zero then the cycle is working correctly?

Is this correct?

regards.

 

[bambam]

if your nitrites and amm is zero then your water in general is fine.... you should check to find out why you have any of these two before you add more fish...... if you continue to add without correcting these problems your going to have alot of dead fish on your hands...... the number one problem with marine fish is that people rush into things, the only thing that comes fast in salt water is problems, anything that will ever come good comes slow

 

[kkyyllee]

why are you adding more fish when you have nitrite?

 

[n3ont3tra]

No really good pics of the fish on google. The closest was a blue spotted Kole tang.

2 fish in 4 days? That's not good... especially because they're big fish, not like clowns or anything. The tank's not really that big, either. Slow down. Get rid of your nitrite problem.

 

[Stuart.Wiltshire]

why are you adding more fish when you have nitrite?

KKyyllee,

I am adding fish because

I have zero amm and less than 3 mg of nitrite, the test results [tetra] will measure as less than 3mg/??, so i assume and i take this as zero nitrites, i have accepetable levels of nitrate. if nitrate levels are less than 12 mg/??, then i have a reasonable enviroment to keep livestock, yes or do you disagree?

Bambam,
if your nitrites and amm is zero then your water in general is fine.... you should check to find out why you have any of these two before you add more fish......

If my amm and nitrites are fine, should i be worried about nitrates at levels of 25 or less? is there a problem that i need to fix?

As i stated earlier the tang [blue spotted] changes colour to suit its moods, it changes when it feeds, when the light goes out, as quick as it swims with its mate, i see a happy fish, perhaps a bit insecure, i honestly dont think there is a prolem with the water perameters. but please tell me different.

 

[n3ont3tra]

so... you say you have 3mg/L of nitrite? Well, 1mg/L = 1ppm. So another way to say it is you have 3ppm of nitrite, when you should have zero. Do not add anymore fish until your ammonia and nitrite are both zero.

if nitrate levels are less than 12 mg/??, then i have a reasonable enviroment to keep livestock, yes or do you disagree?

That should be okay. it's the nitrite you have to worry about.

 

[Stuart.Wiltshire]

so... you say you have 3mg/L of nitrite? Well, 1mg/L = 1ppm. So another way to say it is you have 3ppm of nitrite, when you should have zero. Do not add anymore fish until your ammonia and nitrite are both zero.

Sorry, The test results on Nitrite show that there are less than 0.3mg/L. Sorry i misled you all. please forgive me, this changes matters i guess?

 

[Stuart.Wiltshire]

please use link to see a picture of the "blue spotted unicorn tang"

http/www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?p=1591647

 

[bambam]

"Sorry, The test results on Nitrite show that there are less than 0.3mg/L. Sorry i misled you all. please forgive me, this changes matters i guess?"

i dont know how good you are with numbers Stuart.Wiltshire but .3mg/L does not equal '0', if your going to ask a question in this forum and you arent going to listen to anyone then whats the point of posting???


think of nitrites in the water like highly poisonous gas in our air.... if we were stuck in a box and we had .3mg/L of poison in the air would we survive for long.... we would last a couple of days but we would still die and thats the same as the fish

 

[SkiFletch]

Ok time to clear things up. I assume Stuart that 0.3 is the lowest scale on your color chart. If this is the case, and your tank is as mature in age as you claim, likely one of two things is happening here. Either you're not doing the test just right as the directions say, or you just have an inaccurate test kit. Most hobby-level test kits are not exactly high-quality chemistry lab grade stuff here . So my suggestion... Go get your water tested by your LFS or someone else with a test kit to verify your readings.