My poor Yellow Tang

[Musbtr1pin]

I have checked and rechecked all my parameters.. 8 PH. 0 ppm Ammonia. 0 ppm Nitrite. 10 ppm nitrate.. I use the API Master Saltwater test kit.. It's brand new.. I did a water change and checked my parameters again, which were all in range.. I waited a few days and bought a Yellow Tang..

He was eating right when I added him into the tank.. Picked at my rocks for a bit and was casually swimming around the tank... 55 gal... I just turned on my lights and everything appeared to be fine! I went to my cpu and looked over at my tank and he ( The Tang ) is sitting on the tank bottom in the corner, breathing, but not moving around..

HELP HELP HELP!!! I checked and rechecked my parameters... Could my test kit be crap, and do you read the test looking through horizontally or do you look from top to bottom and compare colors? I do both and get totally different readings... Obviously a deeper color when looking top to bottom... I AM FREAKING OUT, I WANT TO KEEP HIM ALIVE!!!!!!

[Musbtr1pin]

I am hoping that by the time someone gives me some advice, my Tang will still be around.. I have even compared my results with the fish store... It's late, and there is not any LFS open at this time... I don't know what to do, but it's very depressing!!! HELP!

[Musbtr1pin]

I shut the lights off, and measured my salinity.. I have a reading of 1.026 for specific gravity.. A little high, I guess this is after my 5 gallon water change last night..

I siphoned out a few gallons and added some RO/DI water to the tank and dropped the SG to 1.024. My tang started to move around and now he isn't sitting on the bottom of the tank. He did go into hiding tho, I am hoping that this is a good sign, and that maybe he was a little stressed due to the swing of the SG... I have two clowns and two peppermint shrimp... as well as 5 damsels.. Why is everyone else doing good, but I had this problem with my Tang????

[Kmoriarty]

If he reacted well to a water change producing lower Sg it could have been that he was a bit "shocked" when he entered. If the LFS you got him from keeps lower SG levels, and yours were a bit high, it may have stressed him a bit. How did you acclimate? did you pour some of your water into the bag or just temperature acclimate? And did you have the light on while he was in the bag and when you first released him in. Sometimes the light stresses them out i've heard. I always make sure to leave the light off for about 3 hours while adding, and immediately after adding fish. Aside from this, i don't know :/. I wish you the best of luck though, i know how troubled you feel. Just hang in there and try to make him as comfortable as you can.

[Musbtr1pin]

If he reacted well to a water change producing lower Sg it could have been that he was a bit "shocked" when he entered. If the LFS you got him from keeps lower SG levels, and yours were a bit high, it may have stressed him a bit. How did you acclimate? did you pour some of your water into the bag or just temperature acclimate? And did you have the light on while he was in the bag and when you first released him in. Sometimes the light stresses them out i've heard. I always make sure to leave the light off for about 3 hours while adding, and immediately after adding fish. Aside from this, i don't know :/. I wish you the best of luck though, i know how troubled you feel. Just hang in there and try to make him as comfortable as you can.

I added fresh ro/di last night after the post, and he seemed to respond and was gracefully swimming.. I woke up this morning, and he had passed I feel terrible... He had a little brown patch on his sides, not sure if this is an indication of anything, but it was only when he was starting to just sit on the bottom..

[leebca]

I didn't respond because of so much missing information. You provided some information about the water, but other things, like water quality issues we don't measure, how you acclimated the fish to the new aquarium, system setup information, age of the tank, etc., etc. all figure into the situation you observed.

Ultimately, some fish just don't adjust to captivity.