Sailfin tang: UPDATE

24tardo, Those black dots are some kind of organism. I don't know what they are but I've seen them on my Yellow Tangs before. Eventually they went away. Watch them closely, add garlic oil to the meaty food and you will probably be okay.

Yes, Tangs need lots of veggies. Nori is an excellent veggie if you don't have Caulerpa or other macro to feed. If the belly of an herbivore is not always fat, it is not so healthy.

Are you having a number of problems lately? Would you like to discuss your aquarium's overall health?

Edited by Mark Peterson

That's good to hear. If you need macro, I picked up a bunch from Renee on Saturday. Feel free to drop by.

How in the heck am I going to catch him without tearing apart my tank?  What causes "black spot disease"? 

I tested my water this morning and found that my Nitrates were kind of high.     (I guess)

Here are the results:

Am: 0

Ph: 8.0

Nitrates: 20

Nitrites: 0

I dont have tests for Calcium and Alkalinity, but I plan on getting them tested this week.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Tyler

(I went and visited Randy at MSM for some Garlic Extreme and he really helped me out.  I had a bad experience with him before and vowed that I would never go back, but I did and I am glad I did.  He was really nice and really informative.  You can tell that he knows his stuff.  He even opened the retail just to sell me some Garlic extreme.  Really nice guy)

Cool, I guees I dont need to freak out about that.  I gues I will kepp feeding him the food/garlic mix and gravel vac until I can catch the little guy.

jfinch wrote: 20 is actually pretty low. Are you saying 20's low for a reef tank or a fish tank?  I think that's high for a reef tank and likely low for a fish tank (definatly low for a freshwater fish tank).  I agree that 20 ppm nitrates is not likely to be any problem for fish.

I should have clarified.  20 is pretty low for a saltwater fish only tank (20 ppm in a freshwater is almost impossible, unless you do huge water changes IME).  20 ppm of nitrate is probably not effecting his fish.

20 ppm in a reef tank is a little on the high end, but still acceptable IMO.  I don't like the nitrates to get much higher then that.  Obviously the lower the nitrates the better.

Edited by Jake Pehrson

I don't like flatworm exit, but it may help solve the problem.

I had to ask Bird World to order it, but that bottle is gone. Do a search. I remember someone bought some recently and posted. If you need their phone call or PM me.

Personally, I am not so sure that it is flatworm. However, since I have never had to deal with it I am most likely wrong in this case.

When I went over to Tyler's house last week the black (actually a darker shade of gray) spots or lines were rather irregular. They appeared to be scrapes since from what I could see they were on the surface. This wen along with the ich issue that he has been battling recently. On sailfins and alot of lighter colored tangs, ich is often difficult to see... unless you look at their fins. The sailfin had the ich parasite on its fins. I then attributed the dark gray, irregular lines as scrapes which the sailfin then demonstrated while I was there.

Either way, hopefully you are able to get it worked out Tyler. Your tank is looking very nice.