Tang injury

[saltank]

Went to the basement to check on my 46gal reef before going to bed to find my wonderful yellow tang "stuck" to the intake of my powersweep powerhead(which by the way has been working for months, I know the bad rap that ph has taken).

The tang is an awesome cleaner and I've seen him cleaning algea off the powerhead before but never near the intake. It got him on the right side of the face/gill area.

After turning power off to the ph, he slowly drifted down and fortunately begain swimming again. He has a huge hicki but otherwise does not seem too agitated (he looked OK this morning), swimming behind the rocks as he usally does during lights out.

I plan on keeping a close eye on him, I'm concerned about the injury being on the gill area. And also will now put some protective covering over the intake area of that ph. Darn it!! I felt really bad for him.

 

[trido]

I once had a two pound oscar drop to the floor on its head. It had a black eye (whole side of its head) for two months. It recovered fine. Lucky your tang didnt have to stay like that for too long.

 

[Anonymous]

He has a huge hicki

LOL Sorry that's just funny. A tang getting a hickey from a PH, lol

But seriously, if the tang is otherwise healthy, it'll probably do fine. Most fish, including tangs, are very resilliant to small physical injuries if they're healthy to begin with. Just keep a close eye on the wounded area and it should be fine.




Unless the tang's dad finds out about the hickey, and then the boyfriend powerhead will be in for it...lol :lol:

 

[bleedingthought]

I've never had a healthy fish get stuck to powerheads/drains/filter intakes. Is it normal? Or was the Tang weak? Or just dumb? :roll:

 

[SnowManSnow]

same thing happend to me when i got too close to a high powered shop vac... lost my sunglasses.

b

 

[melas]

i had a baby hippo tang get stuck to a powerhead like that. he had a hickey too . . . he lived for about three days and then died. he was eating and everything and i thought he'd be fine. i think the "hickey" was just the visible signs of some massive internal bleeding . . . i pray that yours does not suffer the same fate! good luck!

 

[EmilyB]

I suspect the tang was weak. Are you feeding nori daily, as well as spirulina flake, mysis, etc. ?

 

[saltank]

Well it looks like he is recovering just fine. The hickey is disappearing and he is still eating and behaving normally.

There is more macro in the display tank than he can eradicate, he grazes on it all day long and constantly has a full belly. For some reason he just likes to clean the rest of the tank also, algea off the glass, rocks and (atleast before the injury) powerheads.

I don't complain or wonder too much about his cleaning habits, we all know it is hard to find a good house cleaner out there :wink: