Achillies tang, expert only?

[bobkill]

Hello team- I was wondering if any one could share +\- of this beautiful fish ? I have heard they are hard to ship but not to much more about feeding or parameters swing ?
Thanks

 

[BrianOKC]

Hardest thing about this fish is the first few weeks. It can be very hard to get them to accept food. This fish loves to swim all day long , mine seems to never stop. Some have said they like a lot of water movement in the tank.

What size is your tank? I would say 125 gallon would be the smallest you would want to try and keep one in. I would also recommend a smaller tank like a 55 gal for the first few weeks until you can get him eating.

 

[aday2remmbr]

i have an achilles in my 125 fowlr, for one, they like very high flow thats why many keep them in sps dominant tanks. and as stated they dont ship well so getting one directly from the source would help on that a ton. so instead of the collectors shipping it to the seller, then being shipped to you, you get it shipped to you directly from the collector.

but i have to say once established in a tank the achilles is no more difficult (or seems no more difficult) than any other tang you will keep. you just have to build the tank around the achilles.

 

[bobkill]

Well I have a 55g the guy I am talking to has the little guy that has been eating brine and he is about 2' long - I plan on upgrading tanks in about 6 months so I figure could grow him up then move over - I have ton of flow and lots of rock but and only clowns -

 

[aday2remmbr]

nope, this is not a fish that is easily kept so chances are it will get stressed and die in a matter of days in that small tank. it doesnt matter as much how large it is its how much they swim. if you see one in the ocean they are non stop throughout the day. even the largest tanks in the world cant compare with the ocean but a 55 gallon tank is a definite no no.

 

[BrianOKC]

You mean 2" not 2 feet right?

 

[bobkill]

Yeah 2 inch

 

[aday2remmbr]

the thing about getting when you have a smaller tank is you don tknow what type of situation you will be in by the time it outgrows the tank. maybe you lost your job of something random came up and you cant get a larger tank. then youll have to bring it back to the lfs or try to sell it asap and in the end all that stress will end up killing it.

if we were talking about a hippo or yellow tang i would say maybe it could work, but achilles are much harder to care for and are extremely delicate fish.

 

[BrianOKC]

Bob if this fish is local and already eating that is a huge plus on his ability to survive. I have heard of a lot of them starving to death no matter what the owner did because they would not eat. I would want to see the fish eat something other than live brine before I would feel comfortable. It took me over 2 weeks to get mine to accept pellet food.

 

[chaderic26]

imho a 55 gallon tank will be fine for that small tang if you can get it to eat. It would probably take quite a long time for it to grow a whole lot. I feed my tangs pretty well and haven't seen huge growth.

In the grand scheme of things a tang would be overstocked in a swimming pool compared to the ocean.(stolen comparison) So as long as your doing your job keeping your tank up I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[kdrof]

Max size of those is about 8 1/2 inches. I see they are hard to keep on stats of the fish. But everyone i see that has them says they are no trouble. The only thing i hear them say is they can get ich and diseases easy and are harder to get to eat. So if you QT and feed with garlic i think you would be ok. I will have one in a few months. Good luck

Also i think it will be fine for a few months in the 55... if you can QT it for 3-4 weeks in a 55 im sure you can keep it in there for a few months longer. If it grows fast you can always get your tank earlier/trade it in at worst.

 

[Lightsluvr]

Here is a link to the thread with the most information about the Achilles Tang:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1492655&highlight=achilles+tang

LL