[zhenya]

Hi Lee,

My soon to be 10 years old in captivity Z.flavescens seem to develop a small droop in his dorsal fin, right smack in the middle of it. I suspect that after 10 years one of the rose bubble tip anemones got him.


Is there any reason for concern? It eats really well and swimming without any problem.

TIA

[Poseidon]

WOW, Gene I knew that fish was old, but I didn't know it was 10.

[SouthBayPhoto]

First off...darn nice panning shot!!!

Secondly....ten friggin' years?!

That is toooottalllyyyy awesome! Whenever you read books they always say 2 maybe 3 years.

Sorry to derail the thread...I'm just sitting here amazed.

[leebca]

It could be an injury as you suspect. If it was/is, it should recover. If you don't see a recovery, then there may be something missing in the diet. You don't mention what size the fish was when you acquired it (how old it was before the acquisition), but some fish turn a bit ragged over extensive captive care. Much of these conditions can be traced to nutrition. Not that what it is being fed is wrong or can/should be improved, it's just that 'little something' may have been denied the fish, or been less than it should have been, over a long time.

My 18 year old Tomato Clown is beginning to 'look its age' despite the fact that I'm confident it is getting all the proper nutrition it needs. Maybe Nature didn't expect most of the fish to live long and fish showing these sorts of signs would have been culled from the school by now. Hard to say.

[zhenya]

Hi Lee,

Thak you for your response. The tang actually looks great other than the abvious shortened two spines (or two soft rays, I can;t quite make out) in the dorsal fin. I probably need to either take him out or remove most of the clones of anemones from the tank so that this fish can easily manuver in the tank without risk of another injury.

I feed only frozen fare to the fish, like Laguna and Rod's food. Laguna food contains some algae in it, but I'm not sure what vitamins if any are in there.
As far as it's size when I got it, it was roughly an inch and a half in length. After almost ten years in my tank it is at best three and a half inches long.
Rather small, I think.

PS. There is only one other fish in the tank and it's the Clark's anemonefish. Much larger than this tang but the tang seems to be the boss. It is the first fish that was put in this tank.