Are any tangs captive bread or tank raised.

jaydub74

New member
Thats the question...

I have noticed that often LFS have a lot of small yellow and or hippo tangs within their stores. Are these often tank raised or captive bread fish?

Reason being is that I would prefer to purchase animals that did not get pulled from their natural environment.

Thanks
 
I don't think any tangs are captive bred. I know they're having success breeding clowns and pseudochromis and even some angels. But I've never heard of any success with tangs. Most fish (other than clowns and sometimes pseudochromis) are wild caught in most LFS.
 
Tangs need so much water to actually consider breeding, its like they are in your tank saying, "hey honey, if we had another 25,000gals I would love to procreate." It is just not possible at the present time, and we all are still learning at this point, most of it is a guessing game for now. Maybe someday soon that won't be, but for now we have to forge ahead and figure it out so that the reefs are there for generations to come.

thanks,

Rick
 
At sydney aquarium there is a massive tropical dislplay, im guessing its around 75 meters long by 15 meters wide and 3 meters deep and it has everal species of tangs, sharks, clowns, lionfish and some other's that varie in size. I asked the question to one of the maintance staff and he said they have to go dive and remove some of the fish because they breed so much. i remember him saying some thought of tang and clown's and some other fish do bread.
if you guys ever come to sydney you have to go and have a look.
 
Sometimes you can find fish which are generally termed captive raised versus captive bred. Captive raised are fish that were captured as larvae in the ocean just before they complete metamorphosis. They are then raised to sellable size.
 
I would hesitate thinking that any tangs are captive bred OR raised. They are collected at all sizes, including the micro size we see so frequently, and they have a horrible attrition rate. That is not generally a good size for adaptability or hardiness, and I would bet that 99 percent or more of those 1-2 inchers die before even getting in your tank. Nature culls the weak, and so a fish of a more moderate size (4-5 inches for most tangs, imo) stands a better chance in captivity, due to it's proven hardiness and adaptability.

I don't think anyone is even really aware of the specific food that a larval tang fry needs, much less able to provide it, also how and why would they specifically catch thousands of tang larvae in order to morph them in captivity, when they can just net thousands of the micro tangs while they school? Maybe this is just an aspect of the industry i'm not aware of...

So my answer would be not captive raised OR bred. (for tangs). Sorry.
 
No, they captive (larval) rear all kinds of fish, butterflies, angels, tangs, you name it. The problem is there's alot of work involved in it and thus far the costs have proved prohibitive. A few years back I remember getting in a shipment of larval reared blue tangs from SeaQuest I think. They did awesome, tiny size, ate flake food, very hardy. However, I haven't seen any larval reared tangs for quite some time, and I would be hesistant to believe someone telling me that their tiny tang was larval reared... but it is possible.
 
From what documentaries I have seen on the pacific oceans and such, most tangs are broadcast spawners. Usually large schools of them breed all at the same time. Females let loose the eggs in the water column and males deposit sprm everywhere. Ocean becomes couldy, rays and other fish move in for the fish roe. I do not know if that is something we can induce in an aquarium(unless its gigantic). Someone else might have more info to offer on the subject.
Cheers
 
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