Achilles Tang Primer

been in the display for 2 weeks now.
achilles-2.jpg
 
It is a juv thing

How is your Achilles ?

oh interesting ! looks cool.

my Anchilles is actually doing fairly well [if I can even say this about this fish ? lol "knock on wood" ] no visible marks, no scratching I have noticed when Im home. and I feed it ALOT. brine shrimp gut loaded 3 times a day, PE mysis once, hickari mysis. pellets using an auto feeder[NLS and TLF two], but the anchilles still doesnt care for pellets much ... would eat one if its in front of it, but wont waste effort hunting one lol . I recently started with flake foods as well, to see if I can get him eating those stuff, and still no luck. but the PE mysis is keeping him fat.

I always make sure there is nori in the tank as well,. leave a BIG sheet when I leave in the morning, and when I am home, I replace it everytime the nori is done.

all are soaked in different vitamines and proteins.

I run Zeovit, but still have to do more water changes to overcome this huge overfeeding.


only Issue I see so far, is that 1. the cleaner goby still tries to clean the anchilles !!! what does that mean ? parasites still present ? or could the cleaning goby be eating dead skin ? he changes color sometimes when being cleaned ! lol

and secondly, at nights, the anchilles still looks a bit confused. I am not sure how this fish sleeps ? but he is zooming around at nights ... which I feel like he still hasnt found a good place to sleep ? recently this week, when all lights in the house are off. and I am spying on them with a red dim flash light, I see him taking shelter under a cave, and just swimming slowly, which to me seems like he is more peacefull and found a place to sleep .. so hopefully that would be it too ... if this continues for another week, I will have to make another little shelter in the tank ... We all need a good night sleep ! lol

lol anyways, I am hoping for the best :)


Anchilles and the coral muncher ..
IMG-20110724-00758.jpg


My gang of tangs ... anchilles going undercover as a sohal :P haha
IMG-20110717-00628.jpg
 
Ryanrid, how do you get shots like that, is it skill or do I just need a better camera.

ha ha first time i have heard that i used to be a real bad photographer until i got a canon 7D at xmas and leanrt how to use it real basically. I think it also helps that i QT this fish for so long that he knows me very well and whenever he sees me comes to me for food. I can feed this guy by hand and even touch/pat him and he doesnt care.

the smal dot is a juv thing, his body was approx 2" when i got him but is now approx 2.5".

Not sure why the dot is small i guess like a lot of angels they change from juv to adult.
 
Please Help... My Achilles Tang is having a ich

Please Help... My Achilles Tang is having a ich

Dear All,

I have been reading the whole thread about Achilles and I decided to get one couple weeks ago. I bought a 5-inch Achilles and he looks absolutely healthy.

I QT him in my sump for 4 days to get him to eat flake food and pellet food and then, I introduced him directly to my 5-feet tank. About couple days later, the white spots starts to appear on his body.

Now, it has been 7 days he is having white spots. It is impossible to catch him to do QT in the hospital tank, so I decided to overfeed him to help him build his immune system. I am feeding about 5-6 times per day and he is eating like crazy. And he does not show any sign of stress or trouble breathing.

I can't run UV or Ozone as it is Zeovit tank and UV and Ozone will destroy the Zeovit bacteria system.

My question is whether I need to to anything else to help him fight off the ich. I am planning to try to feed him fresh garlic today because there is no commercial garlic extract in my area to purchase. Or is there a way to do DIY medicated food to help cure the marine ich?

Please advise.

Thanks
Karn K.
 
You can make your own garlic extract with fresh garlic. Can you get him some nori, and selcon? Can you lower the salinity and keep the lights out or is it a reef?
 
Dear All,

I have been reading the whole thread about Achilles and I decided to get one couple weeks ago. I bought a 5-inch Achilles and he looks absolutely healthy.

I QT him in my sump for 4 days to get him to eat flake food and pellet food and then, I introduced him directly to my 5-feet tank. About couple days later, the white spots starts to appear on his body.

Now, it has been 7 days he is having white spots. It is impossible to catch him to do QT in the hospital tank, so I decided to overfeed him to help him build his immune system. I am feeding about 5-6 times per day and he is eating like crazy. And he does not show any sign of stress or trouble breathing.

I can't run UV or Ozone as it is Zeovit tank and UV and Ozone will destroy the Zeovit bacteria system.

My question is whether I need to to anything else to help him fight off the ich. I am planning to try to feed him fresh garlic today because there is no commercial garlic extract in my area to purchase. Or is there a way to do DIY medicated food to help cure the marine ich?

Please advise.

Thanks
Karn K.

I went thru this for a month and a half, I bought a healthy eating Achilles, (did not QT), introduced him to my DT and he was harrassed by my sailfin for a couple days, stressing him out...white spots appeared...I didn't want to stress him more and thought I could fight it with feeding, garlic, selcon, nori and even with cleaners (shrimps and neon goby). I know that cleaners dont eat ich, but they do have some benefits, he would visit them constanntly.

eventually, the spots turned to a "salted" look and I think that the ich overcame him, as he was eating well the whole time, but I think it got to his gills as one day I found him on his side and he was a goner. :(

IF I ever attempt this fish again, I'll QT properly and also introduce with a plexi shield to give him a chance against the other aggresive tangs in my setup (even though the Achilles would be the dominant eventually).

I would but him in your hospital and lower the salinity, which will help get rid of the ich and do a full QT (8+ weeks) and keep feeding nori and food soaked in garlic, selcon, etc.

good luck!
 
I tried to feed fresh garlic mixed with the pellet food last night and he was eating fine. It stinked up my whole house. So, right now, he is now eating pellet food soaked in Selcon and mixed with fresh garlic.

And so I decided to turn on Ozone, regardless of it destroying the ZEOvit system. I want to bring ORP level to around 350-400. I measured ORP level last night and it was only at 200. I just think that saving one fish is worth it.

The strange thing is that the white spots seem to appear a lot at evening and night time. Every morning, I check him out and about 90% of the white spots are gone and they will appear again at night. Is lighting period having anything to do with this?

Regards
Karn K.
 
After loosing my achilles of 6 months I've decided on giving it another try. This time its a much bigger specimen than the last, I found one in my LFS that has been in QT for a month. Eating flakes and frozen food and no sign of ich that I can see. its about 5-6 inches.

Took it home and now in the QT for a week, eating well active up until this morning. Hardly touch his food and less active. I notice a white elongated mark in front of this face when I took it home and placed in the QT. I dont know what it was but it drop off last Sunday, dont know if this has anything to do why hes less active now.

I was gonna start copper today after the prazi treatment, but since hes not eating well should I hold off on the copper until hes back to normal or treat away? I'm doing a water change twice a day morning and evening and I have prime to control amonia.

any thoughts?
 
You know I've read this thread and I can tell you the achilles tang is just one of the most beautiful fish we can house in our tanks. Some of the lessons learned from research was to acquire an ideal size of about a 3" individual that hasn't been beat up too bad from shipping. It seems the tang's body is highly susceptible to bruising (I guess that's the only word to describe it). I think it was something on WWM that Bob Fenner said that you could sometimes literally see a person's finger imprint left on an achilles tang when it was collected, it collected harshly. I bought an achilles when I set my first FOWLR tank up. I bought it off of the Diver's Den. I introduced him to the display, without dipping, just standard acclimation. Needless to say, but he perished in a relatively short period of time 3 days. He was majorly stressed during shipping and my acclimation probably could have been better. I found him on the 3rd day, upside down, breathing/gasping covered in white spots. It was pretty shocking a terrible way to go. He got a burial outside the house. After this experience, I treat any purchase like they just got sent to the spa! FW dips mandatory and they're getting QT'd like they're at the Four Seasons! Looking back the tank he was going into was not ideal either. I guess the only contribution I can have to this thread, is take a good hard look in the mirror before you pick one up and ask if you have the system and the care regime to keep one of the beauties. My LFS (Barrier Reef Aquariums) has an absolute perfect achilles (its been in the store for three weeks eating like a pig) that is about 2.5". The salespeople were pushing me a bit to pick it up, but honestly there is just no way. I guess, personally I wouldn't house one in anything less than a 180 gallon - they love to swim that's for sure!
 
Well said SunkAA. My achillies has been alot of work, if I lost him I would not have another, he is beautiful and I am committed to keeping him healthy, I feel a great sense of responsibility for any fish that has been pulled from our oceans for my benefit. I feel this fish is too delicate to qt in our usual small QT setups and introduced mine directly to the DT but with that said, he was in the tank first and had it to himself for weeks, I have always been ready to pull the rock and hypo my tank, which would be a risk in itself. I think this fish need tons of room and flow, large uv, excellent water quality and diet. My guy had some ich and I turned out my lights for weeks, lowered my salinity to provide more oxygen to the water and performed large water changes, and fed constantly all of these things cannot be done in a reef tank. Anyway, best of luck to all of my fellow achillies owners.
 
Well said SunkAA. My achillies has been alot of work, if I lost him I would not have another, he is beautiful and I am committed to keeping him healthy, I feel a great sense of responsibility for any fish that has been pulled from our oceans for my benefit. I feel this fish is too delicate to qt in our usual small QT setups and introduced mine directly to the DT but with that said, he was in the tank first and had it to himself for weeks, I have always been ready to pull the rock and hypo my tank, which would be a risk in itself. I think this fish need tons of room and flow, large uv, excellent water quality and diet. My guy had some ich and I turned out my lights for weeks, lowered my salinity to provide more oxygen to the water and performed large water changes, and fed constantly all of these things cannot be done in a reef tank. Anyway, best of luck to all of my fellow achillies owners.

i disagree 100%, i QT'd mine for 17 weeks in a 24x24x14" without a problem. QT is essential for this fish as with all others, just know what your doing with a QT not just chuck something together when the fish arrives.
 
It has been two weeks since my Achilles first got ich. He is still eating fine. I am now soaking the pellet food with Beta-Glucan with Garlic and Selcon in the hope that it might help build immune for him to fight off ich. Also, I added UV and Ozone (running at ORP=300Mv) Also, I am trying to do about 10% water change per week.

Is there anything else I can do besides catching the fish out to treat with copper?
 
Unfortunately there not a whole lot more that you can do out side of lowering the salinity and putting your tank in hypo. The achilles is a beautiful fish and certainly one of the most stunning. I have an 8" achilles that is doing great...my approach was to put my entire tank in hypo while I added all of my tangs. I kept the tank in hypo until all of the tangs worked out the "rankings" in the tank...I have quite a few tangs in my tank (9 to be exact). I then slowly raised my salinity to normal and all tangs are doing great including the achilles.

With that said, I QT all of my fish with copper, prazi-pro for at least 1 - 2 weeks. It has worked great for me.
 
Unfortunately there not a whole lot more that you can do out side of lowering the salinity and putting your tank in hypo. The achilles is a beautiful fish and certainly one of the most stunning. I have an 8" achilles that is doing great...my approach was to put my entire tank in hypo while I added all of my tangs. I kept the tank in hypo until all of the tangs worked out the "rankings" in the tank...I have quite a few tangs in my tank (9 to be exact). I then slowly raised my salinity to normal and all tangs are doing great including the achilles.

With that said, I QT all of my fish with copper, prazi-pro for at least 1 - 2 weeks. It has worked great for me.

thats basically it.. simple and works
 
guys, how do I get my anchilles to take pellets :spin2: lol

it is eating algae off of rocks, Nori all day, and frozen PE mysis and brine shrimp once just before lights go out.

but I want to get him to eat pellets, as I feed the tank pellets 6 times a day !

I just dont have the ...... to stop giving him PE mysis till he takes pellets, dont want to stress or weaken him ....
have had him for 2 months now fat, and swimming around.


I Want to get some of the Vit D in NLS pellets in him !!! lol
 
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