geaux xman
New member
Glad to see your AT is working out for you.
Whats the dimensions of your tank?
How much flow are you running?
So from smallest to biggest.... AT, PB, Sailfin, then Regal?
Achilles Tang Primer
- Thread starter BrianD
- Start date
Glad to see your AT is working out for you.
Whats the dimensions of your tank?
How much flow are you running?
So from smallest to biggest.... AT, PB, Sailfin, then Regal?
geaux xman
New member
Its very rare that they chase each other like that. I keep the camera right by the tank to get that clip.
I think often times, we tend to over interpret from the little that we see from a video. I get what you are seeing though. For the most part, whenever I walk up to my tank, I get all 9 fish coming up to the front looking to feed.
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gig
New member
I get a similar reaction when I am trying to take a few pics of my fish as well, they tend to start scurrying about while I follow them with the camera
did you add the AT and PBT at the same time?
geaux xman
New member
PBT about 6 months ago, achilles about 1.5 months ago. they will occasionally go at it, but nothing too serious. i think the aggression between the two has subsided a lot(for now at least).
nonimmigrant
New member
Not necessarily. The older ones are typically harder to get on prepared foods. this is my experience with my group of 4. The smaller ones took to prepared food immediately. My 8" one took a year to get off of just nori...
My AT has been in residence a little over ten weeks now. He has eaten Nori voraciously since day 1. He has picked algae off the LR and back glass during the day.
I am so happy to announce that last night, for the first time, I observed him eating Mysis shrimp along with the other tank occupants! I had previously seen him "pick" at the shrimp, but he would spit them out... now he recognizes them as a preferred food source!
I know he will flourish now.
BTW, I introduced him directly into my DT, just as I have done with all my fish. AT's are known to desire lots of flow, something I could not have provided in a QT. My DT looks like the ocean with flow provided by three MP40's, a Hammerhead-powered closed loop and a Barracuda return flow. I have never lost a fish to Ich or Velvet. A few have jumped, but none have died from disease.
LL
I am so happy to announce that last night, for the first time, I observed him eating Mysis shrimp along with the other tank occupants! I had previously seen him "pick" at the shrimp, but he would spit them out... now he recognizes them as a preferred food source!
I know he will flourish now.
BTW, I introduced him directly into my DT, just as I have done with all my fish. AT's are known to desire lots of flow, something I could not have provided in a QT. My DT looks like the ocean with flow provided by three MP40's, a Hammerhead-powered closed loop and a Barracuda return flow. I have never lost a fish to Ich or Velvet. A few have jumped, but none have died from disease.
LL
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ReefPharmer
Active member
I have been looking to get AT for a while and finally picked one up 2 days ago. I had a 40 gallon qt set up and put him in there but after finding this primer, I decided to take a chance and DT him. I have a 180 gallon 6 foot tank with 3 other tangs in there, a small yellow, medium sized powder blue and a desjardini. Until I put the AT in there, you can imagine that pow blue was king. What I did is go to HD and buy 12$ light diffuser cover (the one that has little squares), cut it to proportion and ward off half the tank. I put AT in the half without other tangs and kept him there all night solo. The fish noticed eachother and ofcourse PBT took a special interest in him. As a note, the AT is bigger than BTW by about 1.5 inches.
Well this morning i removed the divider and ofcourse PBT went for AT as soon as he saw the highway to heaven open up. I knew that this is a possibility which is why i made the divider. After about 5-10 mins, AT went into the rockwork on "his" side of the tank and pbt is occasionally cruising past the cave but does not go in there. As a matter of fact, AT twiches at PBT from his cave in a gangsta WHAAAA style and PBT twitches away.
I hope this works out as I did not want to see a nice specimen waste away in a QT. I hope the other tangs teach him to eat since he really wasnt eating in QT (altho he was only there for a day and 2 days at the importers). My tank was previously ich free - I hypod the other tangs incluiding PBT without a problem and they were rock solid *knock on wood*. I have to go to work so I hope I come back and everyone is more relaxed. Those are the only 4 fish in the tank now. For flow I have a sedra 9000 return, 1 coralia 1400 evo, 1 tunze 6045, 1 MJ1200 with sureflow mod. Any more and I will create crazy sandstorms. The MJ1200 already is poorly attached because of their crap rubber nipple stickons and im afraid it can fall off anyday putting 1600 gph into the sand.
** update, achilles came out of his rocks an now moved into the corner where the other tangs resided. PBT has at this point relinquished control and when he swims by AT, he is submissive. Now, its desjardinis turn (who is also smaller than AT but bigger than PBT). They dance for a while. At this point, the biggest loser is the small yellow tang with a nice gash on his side. AT has 1 gash also but things are settling down and I hope they will pull through. I figure with 4 tangs, 2 gashes are the cost of doing business (altho i would prefer to have none ofcourse).
Well this morning i removed the divider and ofcourse PBT went for AT as soon as he saw the highway to heaven open up. I knew that this is a possibility which is why i made the divider. After about 5-10 mins, AT went into the rockwork on "his" side of the tank and pbt is occasionally cruising past the cave but does not go in there. As a matter of fact, AT twiches at PBT from his cave in a gangsta WHAAAA style and PBT twitches away.
I hope this works out as I did not want to see a nice specimen waste away in a QT. I hope the other tangs teach him to eat since he really wasnt eating in QT (altho he was only there for a day and 2 days at the importers). My tank was previously ich free - I hypod the other tangs incluiding PBT without a problem and they were rock solid *knock on wood*. I have to go to work so I hope I come back and everyone is more relaxed. Those are the only 4 fish in the tank now. For flow I have a sedra 9000 return, 1 coralia 1400 evo, 1 tunze 6045, 1 MJ1200 with sureflow mod. Any more and I will create crazy sandstorms. The MJ1200 already is poorly attached because of their crap rubber nipple stickons and im afraid it can fall off anyday putting 1600 gph into the sand.
** update, achilles came out of his rocks an now moved into the corner where the other tangs resided. PBT has at this point relinquished control and when he swims by AT, he is submissive. Now, its desjardinis turn (who is also smaller than AT but bigger than PBT). They dance for a while. At this point, the biggest loser is the small yellow tang with a nice gash on his side. AT has 1 gash also but things are settling down and I hope they will pull through. I figure with 4 tangs, 2 gashes are the cost of doing business (altho i would prefer to have none ofcourse).
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This is the prefect example of what NOT to do
Triton_Z
Member
Sooner or later w/o a proper QT, you will experience a problem. Large tanks really warrant a proper QT routine. Glad to hear you have succeeded, just a warning to others this is not realistic.
geaux xman
New member
i know 3 locals that got almost their entire livestock wiped out by adding a non-QT AT. Very risky, plus it is much easier to feed and condition a fish in QT.
I agree that there is risk involved by placing any new fish directly in the DT, especially the purported "ich magnet" AT. On the other hand, I know three (+) locals who have killed beautiful AT by placing them in crappy quarantine settings. Poor flow, combined with sub-DT filtration and water quality all combined to kill the very expensive specimens within days.
I have experienced Ich in my DT... when I first moved my fish from a 180G to the 350G, the blue hippo and foxface rabbitfish both showed ich. With garlic treatment, UV filter and supplemented food, they both dropped the ich and it's never been seen again. That was July 2009.
Is there Ich in my system? Probably.
Is there Ich in the ocean? Most definitely.
How do wild fish avoid marine ich? They eat well and enjoy lots of flow and water movement, reducing the odds of an infestation on a healthy fish.
I know they exist, but I personally have never met a home aquarist whose QT matches their DT for water quality, flow and volume. If you stress your fish by confining it to a poorly planned QT, you may as well flush it down the toilet.
That's just my experience, and just like belly buttons, everybody has one.
LL
I tend to agree. You may get lucky a couple of times but if your luck runs out you may loose your entire livestock....are you willing to gamble (because in effect that's what you are doing).
ReefPharmer
Active member
Thank you for your helpful comment. Would you like to tell the rest of us what to actually do? Since I have read the entire thread and most people agree not to put the fish through a QT in a 40 or smaller. Obviously we all would love to have a 150 gallon QT tank and qt the fish, but most of us do not have that capability.
With that said, AT is active, swimming around his half the tank, interacting with the small yellow and desjardini. The PBT is on the other side. Once achilles settles down, and eats etc, I will remove the divider and see what happens. If they still cannot get along, I will remove the PBT.
As far as ich, I am prepared to medicate the whole tank with cupramine. I was ready to do it when I decided to move the fish into DT.
Obviously the purpose of this thread is to SHARE best practices.....what needs to be taken into consideration is that what works best for some may not work for others. I for one do NOT like taking the risk of adding a new fish into my DT without QT. I believe and (I stress this is my belief) that QT allow the fish to acclimate under less stressful conditions and without competition for food. My AT was in QT for 5 weeks...this allowed me the opportunity to introduce all types of foods rather than 1 or 2 specified types. By the end of QT he ate pellets, flake, nori and all frozen foods that I normally introduce to the DT. By the way my QT is 30 gals. As stated in earlier posts on this thread I do have ich in my DT however there are no signs since moving all my fish from my previous 85 gal tank to my new 215 DT. My AT was healthy enough to make the transition from QT to DT without developing ich which of course is good for him but also was a major concern for the rest of my livestock. I am happy to report that I did NOT have an ich outbreak when I introduced the AT. My powder brown does NOT like the AT and he still occasionally chases the AT around the tank HOWEVER I still have no signs of ich and all are eating very well. It's been around 3 weeks now. Each hobbyist has to do what they feel is in their best interest. These posts are just individual experiences. In the end the main concern is the livestock. Hopefully whichever method you prescribe to.....it will work out for the AT.
ReefPharmer
Active member
Here is an update for my achilles. I moved him into the main tank 180 gallon and as I mentioned above. the PBT took an interest in him. Since I could not really keep them separated completely, I had to make a separation egg crate as you can see in the pictures.
Tang broke out in what I thought was ich. I was torn between treating the whole tank with cupramine or hypo'ing the whole thing. After a few days I decided on hypo, and spend the time making tons of RO and trying to catch the fire shrimp in the tank. After finally doing so and moving them into my almost ready 75, I moved all the corals over and dropped the salinity. At this time, I realized that this was not ich and instead was a bad case of flukes. I turned off the lights and easily caught AT with a net and did a 5.5 minute RO dip. It cleared up most of the flukes. I think that the RO bath was not as effective as it could have been because he is coming out of hypo water already and the difference in osmolarity was not great enough to take care of all flukes. I can still see a fluke on his eye and maybe on his snout but most are gone and he doesnt shake his head anymore (for now).
At this point he is very active, and is eating nori and swimming around all over his 90 gallons. I dosed about 7ml of prazipro into the tank and will repeat the dosing probably on monday. If the flukes dont fall off him, I will have to redip him.
For now the plan is to run hypo in the whole tank with no skimmer for 2.5 months. The tank was without ich before and I realized I was taking a chance when I added this fish without a proper QT. Now I am paying for it but if I can get him and my other tangs to live peacefully, it will be worth it. If not, SEE YOU LATER PBT!
Sorry for the bad pics, my camera isnt the best.
Tang broke out in what I thought was ich. I was torn between treating the whole tank with cupramine or hypo'ing the whole thing. After a few days I decided on hypo, and spend the time making tons of RO and trying to catch the fire shrimp in the tank. After finally doing so and moving them into my almost ready 75, I moved all the corals over and dropped the salinity. At this time, I realized that this was not ich and instead was a bad case of flukes. I turned off the lights and easily caught AT with a net and did a 5.5 minute RO dip. It cleared up most of the flukes. I think that the RO bath was not as effective as it could have been because he is coming out of hypo water already and the difference in osmolarity was not great enough to take care of all flukes. I can still see a fluke on his eye and maybe on his snout but most are gone and he doesnt shake his head anymore (for now).
At this point he is very active, and is eating nori and swimming around all over his 90 gallons. I dosed about 7ml of prazipro into the tank and will repeat the dosing probably on monday. If the flukes dont fall off him, I will have to redip him.
For now the plan is to run hypo in the whole tank with no skimmer for 2.5 months. The tank was without ich before and I realized I was taking a chance when I added this fish without a proper QT. Now I am paying for it but if I can get him and my other tangs to live peacefully, it will be worth it. If not, SEE YOU LATER PBT!
Sorry for the bad pics, my camera isnt the best.
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geaux xman
New member
is the achilles in the 90g? the prazipro dosage is 5ml/20gal.
