Achilles tang

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PavoCristatus

New member
Hi, I have an Achilles tang in a 120g which is doing fairly well, minus the occasional ick from time to time, I've had him for 5 months now. He feeds very well on frozen food (spirulina brine, mysis, ocean plankton etc.) and nori right out of my hands but I cannot seem to switch him to pellets. I would REALLY be happy if he could eat that at least once a day and get more nutrition into him. He's a nice belly but I fear that frozen food is just not enough, even if I vary greatly.
Anyone here has any tips on how switching him to pellets? All my other fish just started eating those without me having to do anything special... I've had a moorish idol, plenty of angels and mandarins accepting those really quick. He's just not interested :/

I don't know if starving him to see if he's going to crack is a good idea as he seems really pig-headed! He will sometimes not eat certain foods and continue begging at the surface to get something else, he can be VERY specific! Some days I have to feed him 4 different things until he chooses what he wants. Now he prefers ocean plankton but on other days, he will eat more brine for some reason...

I have tried soaking pellets in garlic along with the frozen food, but he wont even look at them. (I've heard about selcon but it's not available in my area)


Thanks in advance!
 
just wait and give it time, it will eventually.

NLS pellets.

no reason to starve it ... frozen mysis is more than enough with nori on the side.
 
I've had a few Achilles Tangs over the years and none of them would eat pellets or flake. Nori, spirulina brine .... occasionally Mysis and mega marine .... but that was about it.
 
Keep trying the pellets, it may take months or more but in time the AT should eventually accept pellets. DO NOT starve the AT, especially if you have seen the AT battle ich more than once in the 5 short months you have had him. If you starve the AT the ich will come back and come back quickly with a vengeance and you might not be able to get the AT to kicking this time without a QT involved. For whatever it is worth I would QT the AT and whatever other fish you have and leave the DT fallow to eliminate ich in the future for the AT. If any fish is going to get ich it will be he Achilles
 
Dmorty217 said:
Keep trying the pellets, it may take months or more but in time the AT should eventually accept pellets. DO NOT starve the AT, especially if you have seen the AT battle ich more than once in the 5 short months you have had him. If you starve the AT the ich will come back and come back quickly with a vengeance and you might not be able to get the AT to kicking this time without a QT involved. For whatever it is worth I would QT the AT and whatever other fish you have and leave the DT fallow to eliminate ich in the future for the AT. If any fish is going to get ich it will be he Achilles
Click to expand...

I dont QT as I believe it is pointless, too much corals/inverts entering the tank too often etc. This is just how it works with me and Ick doesnt scare me much, all my fish went through it and get over it. The achilles tang eats like a real pig, he bites my fingers. He's had ick non stop for the whole 5 months I've had, and it doesnt seem to bother him at all. My blue tang battled ick for 2 years straight and it still happens from time to time... Anyway, QTing is just not an option for me and I do not believe that Cupramine, hyposalinity or freshwater dip will make him accept pellets more... I had no plans on starving him, would never do that to a delicate fish I just wanted to avoid getting that answer.

Was just wondering if there was something in particular I could do with the pellets that would seem to get him more interested in them.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

Here's a tank shot and one (the only one cause he's too fast!) of the little guy:

tank110.jpg


achill10.jpg
 
My Achilles would only eat nori for a year and nothing else. All of a sudden at the start of year 2 he decided he loved NLS pellets...I'm hoping for year 3 soon he'll finally decide he loves mysis ;-) He's 7" long now and about 6" thick.
 
I just picked up a new Achilles about 6 weeks ago. I love small fish. The Fiancee' loves the the Achilles. When we first started dating she picked out an Achilles that she wanted as her fish in the tank. We got a juvenile. When our tank crashed last fall the Achilles had grown to full adult coloration and we were devastated by the loss.
So when I was rebuilding our livestock population she kept asking when I was getting the Achilles. Since she gave me permission to restock the tank, before buying an engagement ring I was pretty eager to keep her happy. But finding a nice Achilles was a challenge. She got her ring on New Year's Eve, and then at the end of January I found a beautiful Achilles, but it is show size.
The Achilles started picking off the rock work around day 3, and was eating flake casually (not aggressively) by the end of week one.
I have an auto-feeder that feeds NLS, Salifert, Otohine, and Sustainable Aquatics pellets several times a day. The Achilles munches pellets no problem.

Still hasn't been interested in Nori.

Dave B
 
Holsteiner said:
My Achilles would only eat nori for a year and nothing else. All of a sudden at the start of year 2 he decided he loved NLS pellets...I'm hoping for year 3 soon he'll finally decide he loves mysis ;-) He's 7" long now and about 6" thick.
Click to expand...

I chuckle every time you post about your AT because I have literally never seen a fish of any kind seem quite so content - bring new meaning to 'fat, dumb and happy' :lol: But .... I then always forget to ask you if it was nice and fat while only eating nori; in other word, is nori enough to get by on?
 
ca1ore said:
I chuckle every time you post about your AT because I have literally never seen a fish of any kind seem quite so content - bring new meaning to 'fat, dumb and happy' :lol: But .... I then always forget to ask you if it was nice and fat while only eating nori; in other word, is nori enough to get by on?
Click to expand...

LOL! Yep...fat, dumb, pain in the a**, and happy pretty much sums him up! But yes, even during that first year when he only ate nori with selcon, he blimped up to his morbidly obese physique :-) I was also home a lot with school, so he pretty much had an "all you can eat" buffet all day long. I was so concerned because he would only eat the nori I went a little overboard. But I love my fat fish!!! My husband is concerned I'm going to do the same thing to him.
 
ca1ore said:
What, just feed him nori? :)
Click to expand...

Haha, I guess it just goes to show that even eating salad in excessive quantities can make you fat ;-) Other then that the only thing I can think of is selcon must be incredibly high in calories and fat? He's actually gotten even fatter since he started eating the NLS pellets, I'll have to get another "profile" shot of him.
 
I'm still waffling on when to add my AT to my display. It's looking great in a 30 gal QT, but still will only eat spirulina brine. I've had it since early Dec, so clearly brine is enough because it's not thin at all, but QT is too small obviously. Am thinking that it will catch on to the nori thing once it sees the other tangs, going at the clip, but my suspicions of potential ich in my display continues to give me pause.
 
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