Pls help save my Naso, she won't eat...

S

stratman

Please, I'm taking all suggestions. I don't want to lose this fish, but don't know what else to try... :cry: I'm about to do another 20G water change with premix from my LFS, but I cannot find anything wrong with my water.

I have a beautiful female Naso tang about 6" long. I've had her about 2 months. 5 days ago, she simply quit eating. I was rotating through various Ocean Selects seaweeds & Kikari/SF Bay/H2O Life frozen foods and she was a voracious eater. She has no marks on her anywhere, and is exhibiting no bad behavior except for being a little more shy than usual. She is looking VERY thin, I don't think she has long left...

I reviewed several threads here on Tangs (and elsewhere, like Bob Fenners' stuff), and have tried the following based on member suggestion: Regular seaweed soaked in Garlic Xtreme, Nori soaked in Selcon, Formula 2 soaked in Selcon, Garlic Xtreme added directly to the water (made the other fish go NUTS), Live Brine fed Selcon. The Selcon excited her a little, but never attempted to eat anything.

My setup is a 90G with about 120 lbs liverock w/softies. 20G refugium with mostly chaeto, 9W UV, Phosban Reactor, Euro-Reef RS80 skimmer, pumps turning tank over approx 6-7 times an hour. I do weekly changes of 15G.

Tank mates are:
7 sm blue-green chromis, 3 tiny damsels (very timid), 1 flame angel, 1 scooter blenny, 2 sm tank raised percs, various crabs/snails, RBTA/brittle star/serpent star. No one picks on the tang, every one gets along just fine.

My water parameters:
temp 79.5
SG 1.0235
ph 8.2
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
calcium 750mg/l
alk 250ppm
phosphates .3 mg/l (I need to change the phosban media)
 
Sorry, I really don't have anything insightful to add, just didn't want you to think you were being ignored, and wanted to give this thread a free bump...

Good luck!
 
Aww... I can't offer any advice either. The only suggestion I have would be maybe isolating it in case someone is bothering him at night when you're not paying attention? And skipping a day of feeding and then try the day after to see if he's simply being a brat.
 
I know it's a bit weird, but could the fish be really constipated and just refusing to eat now. The reason I say that is the last newsletter that I read from MarineDepot was about fish not eating and one of the reasons was constipation. As weird as it seems, they recommended fresh water drip for the solution. Here's the link...maybe something else will help too:
http://www.marinedepot.com/kb/article.aspx?id=10380
Good luck and hope it starts eating again.

Doug
 
Yeah, that article had some interesting points. I'll try the freshwater dip tonight and see how it goes. Thanks!

James
 
Sound very interesting in doing a fresh water dip. I figure it would probably put more stress on the fish.

What I usually do to get my female naso tang to eat is by adding extreme garlic then break the nori sheet into tons and tons of small pieces. I will continue to do this for several days. Eventually, when the food is floating by the tang, she will start eating again.
 
I've been thinking the same thing. The last thing I want to do is add more stress to the fish. I got home too late last night to do the dip anyway.

Tri, How often does yours quit eating, and for how many days at a time?
 
She started eating again tonight... :D Of all things she accepted Hagen's Nutrafin Max pellets, which I just happened to have laying around. She must be sore/restricted, cause she would contine to spit them out until they softened in the water.

She still shows no interest in any algae, other flakes, live brine or any frozen foods, but... this is a start.

More pellets are soaking in Selcon right now, so they'll be nice and soft for tomorrow morning! Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions thus far.
 
@stratman wrote:
I've been thinking the same thing. The last thing I want to do is add more stress to the fish. I got home too late last night to do the dip anyway. Tri said:
My naso would stop eath once every 4 months. Don't know why but then, I flood the tank with lots of food. Eventually, the tang will eat. Of course, I would try all sorts of food.
Click to expand...
 
Hooray! My fish is still alive and is eating frozen stuff, pellets, and sheet algae and is starting to put her weight back on.

I guess the lessons learned here are: Always have a BIG variety on hand, keep vitamins & Selcon handy, and when tangs act up like this, show lots of patience and be very observent.
 
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