Blonde naso tang stopped eating

[SKEETER1978]

I have a 5-6 in blonde naso tang in my 210 reef and he suddenly stopped eating and acting a little different. i have had him for almost 2 years and he is usually a pig and will eat out of my hand and even bites me. He started out sat just not eating as much. on sunday he stopped eating and is hanging out in the same spot in the tank. On wed night he ate a little flake food soaked in garlic. He stays just in front of the yellow tangs home and the yellow was trying to push him out but it doesn't bother him, he will even push back at the yellow. He looks perfect even though i haven't see him eat since sat but starting to get a little skinny (except under the blue lights i could see a light film of something on his lips on sunday) But that film was gone by monday. Could he have got stung by a coral while grazing? I have seen him shiver/ flex his fins and rub on rock few times but dont see any spots or rapid breathing?
Tank info
210g with 55g sump 10g refug
rlss r8 skimmer
led lights
Amm-0
n-0
n-0
phos 0 (with gfo reactor)
temp 78.5
ph 8.0-8.2
sal-1.025-6
i do 40g water changes about every other week
Tankmates
med yellow tang
val puffer
two snowflake clowns
pj cardinal
lawnmower blenny
firefish
Only new fish are clowns that where added fri 3-17 last week they are tiny and went through ttm then 3 weeks qt before put in display.
I did get 6 new frags on sun 3-21 also and i did start adding melafix on tuesday hoping he was just injuried
Thanks for any help
Mike

 

[carpetreef75]

Mike tank parameters look good have read p.h. 8.4 is optimum .your naso will get a better treatment by netting him and putting him in a 5 gal bucket with melafix or freshwater dip . do you have a quarantine tank ?
Bryan

 

[SKEETER1978]

Yes i have a 10g qt tank and two 18g rubbermaid cont i use for ttm. I was not sure if he was sick injured or on a hunger strike so i didn't want to move him and make him more stressed. plus hard to catch lol
I do have a rescued hippo tang and kole tang in one of the 18g that is scheduled to finish qt and go into the display tomorrow but i should probably hold off.
Plus my wife said he ate again this morning not allot but she said he even came up to her when she started to feed them.

 

[carpetreef75]

Yes i have a 10g qt tank and two 18g rubbermaid cont i use for ttm. I was not sure if he was sick injured or on a hunger strike so i didn't want to move him and make him more stressed. plus hard to catch lol
I do have a rescued hippo tang and kole tang in one of the 18g that is scheduled to finish qt and go into the display tomorrow but i should probably hold off.
Plus my wife said he ate again this morning not allot but she said he even came up to her when she started to feed them.

if you end up needing to catch him to dip night time when hes sleeping with a flash light makes it easy . just caught 2 with a flashlight and they never moved
Bryan

 

[SKEETER1978]

Do you think i should move him?? or wait now that he started eating alittle?

 

[madjoe]

Good luck im on # 6 lol all did same ate like pigs then stopped. I didnt have as long as u though and ive read they go through hunger strikes . Mine all ended up dieing in first few days of hunger strike hopefully u have better luck

 

[carpetreef75]

Do you think i should move him?? or wait now that he started eating alittle?

my tangs love bok choy chinese cabbage, may be worth a try they eat like pigs so wont take long for it to get skinny and fade away . If its still rubbing on rocks sounds like trying to get the parasites off Good Luck
Bryan

 

[SteveV]

I'm fairly new but my 2 cents. If he started eating I would leave him alone. Moving them is stressful. I personally would not introduce any new fish/items in the tank until he is better..

 

[SKEETER1978]

my tangs love bok choy chinese cabbage, may be worth a try they eat like pigs so wont take long for it to get skinny and fade away . If its still rubbing on rocks sounds like trying to get the parasites off Good Luck
Bryan

Well there should not be any ich (i hope) about 5-6 mo ago i had a ich outbreak from a powder brown i didnt qt (my fault) and i lost half my fish the naso and yellow were bad but i put all the fish into a 75g and sent them into hypo-sal 1.008 sg for 6 weeks and then 4 more weeks of plain qt observation. The display tank went fallow for 10 weeks. Only fish added since then was the clowns who went into ttm followed by qt for 3 weeks.
have not seen any spots on any fish. (fingers crossed)

 

[carpetreef75]

I'm fairly new but my 2 cents. If he started eating I would leave him alone. Moving them is stressful. I personally would not introduce any new fish/items in the tank until he is better..

not as stressfull as starving and dying , just my .02
Bryan

 

[SteveV]

I thought he said he started eating????

 

[SKEETER1978]

He did start eating im going to monitor him if he is still stratching i will have to get him out.. watching him on the tank cam today he has now kicked the yellow out of his home so he cant be too sick. and seem to be more active today

 

[SteveV]

Try to keep feeding him 2-3 times a day, sounds like he had the 2 day flu.... Good luck!

 

[SKEETER1978]

He is back to eating out of my hand. Hopefully it was nothing to worry about im going to moniter him dor a while.
Thanks for all the help
Mike

 

[SteveV]

Glad you didn't move him.. Good news!!! I have one that is one of my favorite fish! Little I have learned is everyone moves the fish at first sign and they end up dying.. Feeding smaller amounts more frequently and leaving lights off for extended times helps..