achilles tangs

[luckydog104]

I have had mine for a month . He had one minor outbreak of ich seems not to be a problem now. I have read where this is a very hard to keep fish. I feed a variety of foods three times a day , water changes of 30 gallons every other week . Fish eats good acts happy . Is their anything else that I can or should do to help keep this fish for a long time? I also feed with food soaked in selcon every other day.

 

[BoiseStateFan]

They come from areas where the water is very, very turbulent. Make sure you have lots of flow.

 

[luckydog104]

flow is aprox. 30x tank volume.

 

[hurleycr]

Had one for about a year and some change.... once you get them ich free and eating with gusto and not just pecking the food they are model. Just make sure you QT anything that goes into the tank once you get them acclimated otherwise you can introduce the ich again. Also, under all costs DO NOT LET THEM GET STRESSED!!! I had a minor PH spike with a Kalk accident and mine stressed out went white and killed over in just days. When all other fish and coral were fine and didn't even take notice.

I love them but will never own another, In my opinion they should be left alone and only put in large aquariums where it is hard for small accidents to effect the water quality easily.

 

[luckydog104]

That is some sound advice, thankyou. I also see you have a 220 gallon tank and choose not to keep one , meaning I must really stay on top of my game. By the way I am in Bristol just up the road 90 miles from you. Any other sound advice you may have or know of some good reading material please pass it on.

 

[hurleycr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12060029#post12060029 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by luckydog104
That is some sound advice, thankyou. I also see you have a 220 gallon tank and choose not to keep one , meaning I must really stay on top of my game. By the way I am in Bristol just up the road 90 miles from you. Any other sound advice you may have or know of some good reading material please pass it on.

RC is really the best resource going. Almost everything you find other than really large aquaria says not to house one. I have found only those who have a lot of experience in keeping difficult fish have success. Which is too bad because it is my favorite tang by far!!!

I personally will not try one again because I like to keep a lot of different fish and i'm away from my tank for long periods at a time. You have to have your maintence down to a science and have a rock solid enviroment for this fish. It is very easily stressed out. Anything from it not being happy with its tank mates, to you adding more fish, to you walking by the tank too much can stress it out. They are really meant for the experienced reef keepers out there, not saying you can't have success with it, they are just really prone to disease in the wrong enviroment. Sometimes you think you are doing great and they are eating well and so on just to find out that you are just buying time and they are really slowly starving to death. Because the food they decide to accept isn't always the most nutrional of choice. For me mine decided it only would eat nori sheets and flake food. For me to really get it fat, I would slowly destroy my tank by adding too many flake foods so I had to cut back and try other foods. Mine finally started to accept other foods but like I said one small equipment failure and poof it freaked out and died.

I think the key thing is to get them to have a really strong appeitite at least a couple times a day with a variety of food.

Good luck, best thing to do is keep an ever watchful eye on it and the minute you see any odd behavior swimming on its side hiding, going pale, etc. Ask for help on RC immediately, though as I have found a lot of times its too late at that point. Put it this way ICH is an easy fix compared to the rest of what can happen. At least it is a slow diesease that can be treated. Stress can cause all sorts of bad stuff to happen.

 

[luckydog104]

Thankyou I feed mine three times a day with a mix of spiralina flake , brine shrimp ( freeze dried ) , and nori. I also feed formula two, brine, myisis, and an angel formula 2 frozen about three / 4 times a week. Selcon soaked foods once every other day . Right now I am changing 30 gallon a week just because of the amount of feeding I am doing when I feel comfortable ( never) I plan to drop back to 30 gallon every other week on water changes. I also added aprox 40 lb. live rock , cured , to my already 120 lbs so that my yellow and my achilles would not constantly be looking at each other. I hope with all this plus good flow and my plan to add 0 fish from this day forth all works out. However if things continue to work out when I go on vacation I will have a miserable time assuring myself that he is ok under someone else
care.

 

[hurleycr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12060633#post12060633 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by luckydog104
Thankyou I feed mine three times a day with a mix of spiralina flake , brine shrimp ( freeze dried ) , and nori. I also feed formula two, brine, myisis, and an angel formula 2 frozen about three / 4 times a week. Selcon soaked foods once every other day . Right now I am changing 30 gallon a week just because of the amount of feeding I am doing when I feel comfortable ( never) I plan to drop back to 30 gallon every other week on water changes. I also added aprox 40 lb. live rock , cured , to my already 120 lbs so that my yellow and my achilles would not constantly be looking at each other. I hope with all this plus good flow and my plan to add 0 fish from this day forth all works out. However if things continue to work out when I go on vacation I will have a miserable time assuring myself that he is ok under someone else
care.

I would def. look at removing some rock to free up more space for them to swim. More rock doesn't always mean better. Again good luck.

 

[Monstrigity]

The more rock that you have the better as long as it isn't in the display taking up valuable swimming space. If you have room in your sump that would be a great spot for your extra live rock. Also, some of the "expert only" fish like Moorish Idols, Clown Tangs, and Achilles seem to be much easier to keep by people who feed New Life Spectrum pellets. As posted before, flow is also very important. Give him a big powerhead like a Vortech or Tunze and he will use it like we would use a treadmill. Oh.... Thats right I havent used my treadmill in years.... bad example.

 

[luckydog104]

Thanks what type of new life spectrum food should I try to get? I have checked it out but there are several different types and the info that I found did really not specify it seemed to be very broad.

 

[Monstrigity]

They are all about the same, really. The Thera A is supposed to help fight Ich with extra garlic (I think it's more from just plain good nutrition) and I think it's a little higher in protein. I would probably use that for about 50-60% of his total diet, with the rest being a combo of 20% red, green, purple, and brown nori, 15%mysis soaked in selcon, and throw various other high quality food sources for the remaing 5-10%. That should just about optimize its diet. Throw the brine shrimp in the trash where it belongs!

 

[gmneil]

i'm thinking about getting one myself, keep us posted on how he is doing

thanks

 

[luckydog104]

My little girl has named him troy , my wife told her about the movie so she came up with the original name.He is doing fine, Ich seems not to be a problem anymore and I don't plan on adding another fish so I hope I have that licked.I did buy some nls food and he started to eat it almost the sec it hit the water. So I am feeding him nori,spiralena, nls pellets,myisis, and once every other day I soak one of the foods in selcon. He is fat and healthy.I also keep up with my parameters better and do more water changes . I guess you could say that the fish has made me be a better aquarist . I will try to post a pic soon.

 

[luckydog104]

 

[luckydog104]

Sorry about the pic size , I can't adjust it on photobucket .Every time I go to edit it I get kicked off Internet explorer.I tried to get a couple more on here another way but have yet to do it.