I have my Achilles in a 3 year old reef. It is a standard dimension 210 gallon tank with 300+ lbs of live rock and 40X water turnover rate. Tank is full of fish and is LPS dominated with a little bit of stony coral and a crocea clam. He has been in the tank for 10.5 months.
The first achilles I tried was given to me by the LFS. He was very, very skinny and sickly. He died in 2 days. I figured that would happen because he was so far gone, but the price was right. I didn't try a new one for almost 2 years.
I waited and searched for the right achilles. On Dec 4th of 2007 I brought home a beautiful 6-7 inch achilles from the Diver's Den. I picked him up in person because I didn't want to stress him out with shipping. I acclimated him for a hour or so and put him in the main display. Within a few days he developed some ich which didn't affect my other fish at all. I got him a pair of cleaner wrasses that had him spot free in a few days and I kept food in front of him all the time for the first few weeks. The ich went away and he has been fine ever since. DISCLAIMER___ I am in no way recommending that you should not QT your fish. I don't recommend you try this with your Achilles Tang.
He ate Seaweed selects within a couple of hours of introduction. He loves any type of algea sheets. He also eats all frozen meaty foods offered. He still doesn't eat flake or pellets. He was a bit slender when I got him but has since filled out beautifully.
His tankmates include 4 other tangs of which two are acanthurus sp. There is little aggression between him and the other fish although he is definitely king of the tank and occasionally chases the other fish. The others just stay out of his way. He has never hurt any other fish nor harrassed them to the point they were stressed out and wouldn't go out in the open at all. If he chases one into the rock he forgets about it and they reapear within moments.
My achilles tang can change his eye and skin color at will. To signal a cleaner shrimp, neon goby, or cleaner wrasse he turns both his skin and his eyes blue. When showing aggression to another fish (or his reflection) he changes only his eye color blue and flares his fins which turn a dark red orange color. I used to be able to make him change his eye color by turning off the room lights in the evening so he could see his reflection in the glass but he is now used to it and wont acknowledge his reflection any more. He will still change his eye color to warn another fish to get out of his way. He also change his eye color without changing his fins to red.
I have seen achilles with their eyes stuck blue in the store and I don't know for sure what this signifies, but after observing my fish I would see it as an indication of stress and pass that fish by in the store. I know mine doesn't do this when he is happily swimming around. For him it is a rare thing and not an indication that he is happy.
His tank mates are as follows -
1 Copper Band Butterfly
3 Ocellaris Clowns
2 Pink Skunk Clowns
4 Lyretail Anthias
1 Coral Beauty
1 African Flameback Angel
1 Potters Angel
1 Achilles Tang
1 Orange Shoulder Tang
1 Convict Tang
1 Regal Tang
1 Naso Tang
1 Midas Blenny
2 Chromis
1 Blue Throat Trigger
1 Whipfin Wrasse
1 Neon Goby
Here are a few pictures of my achilles. The first picture is normal coloration. The other show some of his other colorations; Blue for cleaners and blue eyes for "move it or I am gonna kick your butt."
Here is the day he was introduced and met my Naso.
Here is a picture of the achilles and his tankmates taken today. Since the picture above I have changed lights from 10K to 15K so the tank is a bit to blue now.
Lisa
