Hi All, woke up yesterday to find my Naso tang had wedged himself into the rocks upside down. After fishing him out it was obvious there was something physically wrong with him. I expected him to pass away overnight but he is still alive. He moves his pectoral fins, and can adjust his position. I would call his breathing rate reduced rather than normal or fast.
The thing that is odd to me is the extreme position he is flexing his spine into - I'm wondering if he crashed into something a top speed and it's a neuro/spine problem? He also constantly has his dorsal fin raised like his body is tense. I have a glass cover on 80% of my tank to keep a moray eel in, and I bet a jump that hit the glass at a bad angle could really do some damage. He's not floating and seems to be controlling his buoyancy, but when he does move it's obvious he doesn't have full control (not quiet the whirlies). He also looks around (but has a scratch on one eye when I was trying to get him out of the rock he was wedged in which is probably not helping) and I haven't tried feeding him yet. He was eating pellets, frozen and algae as recent as the day before.
I'm not worried about the white spots you can just see being ich or velvet I think, he was in the sand and the rocks before I moved him into the box, and the acrylic box he's in has accumulated a bit of crud (you can see if on the bottom where he has been laying), so I think that's just bits of whatever. It also has not progressed like I understand you would expect to see velvet progress in the time he's been like this (going on 36 hours now).
History wise he is relatively new but has been in the tank a few months. He didn't eat for about the first week, but worked it out and would join everyone else to eat and I was not worried that he wouldn't put any weight he lost back on. He was never quite as active as the other tangs but I thought that was just his personality. There has been no aggressions between him and the other tangs that I've observed and he seemed to enjoy hanging out with my fox face. All other fish are happy and normal (Tangs, blennys, clowns, a goby, an angel and a handful of damsels, as well as the moray).
I guess my question is, is there a disease/parasite that could be causing this or is it likely physical, and how long do I monitor before putting him out of what might be misery?
The thing that is odd to me is the extreme position he is flexing his spine into - I'm wondering if he crashed into something a top speed and it's a neuro/spine problem? He also constantly has his dorsal fin raised like his body is tense. I have a glass cover on 80% of my tank to keep a moray eel in, and I bet a jump that hit the glass at a bad angle could really do some damage. He's not floating and seems to be controlling his buoyancy, but when he does move it's obvious he doesn't have full control (not quiet the whirlies). He also looks around (but has a scratch on one eye when I was trying to get him out of the rock he was wedged in which is probably not helping) and I haven't tried feeding him yet. He was eating pellets, frozen and algae as recent as the day before.
I'm not worried about the white spots you can just see being ich or velvet I think, he was in the sand and the rocks before I moved him into the box, and the acrylic box he's in has accumulated a bit of crud (you can see if on the bottom where he has been laying), so I think that's just bits of whatever. It also has not progressed like I understand you would expect to see velvet progress in the time he's been like this (going on 36 hours now).
History wise he is relatively new but has been in the tank a few months. He didn't eat for about the first week, but worked it out and would join everyone else to eat and I was not worried that he wouldn't put any weight he lost back on. He was never quite as active as the other tangs but I thought that was just his personality. There has been no aggressions between him and the other tangs that I've observed and he seemed to enjoy hanging out with my fox face. All other fish are happy and normal (Tangs, blennys, clowns, a goby, an angel and a handful of damsels, as well as the moray).
I guess my question is, is there a disease/parasite that could be causing this or is it likely physical, and how long do I monitor before putting him out of what might be misery?
