Cant seem to fatten up purple tang!

[lagatbezan]

I have a Purple tang in qt that cant seem to put on any weight and I can kinda see its horizontal back bone. It has been in the qt for the last three weeks with a flame angel and been going through TT. the first week I got it, It was sluggish and wouldnt eat so I treated with Prazipro (for 3 days) and it started eating formula two flakes and got more active. by the second week it stated eating spectrum pellets. I also treated it for a second time with prazipro. currently it eats great (full stomach) and is very active but cant seem to put on any weight. I feed heavy, sometimes 4 times a day. I also add selcon to the pellets. Today I treated with prazipro for the third time and I also added seachem metro to the water just in case its internal parasites (I was a little scared to add it to its food and didnt want to overdose). Any suggestions? the flame is doing great!

 

[HumbleFish]

IME; tangs don't really put on weight until they start eating nori. Which is something they sometimes refuse to eat in QT for various reasons.

You haven't seen any stringy white poop or a pinched stomach, have you? Prazi is great for gill flukes, but metro is better if a fish has intestinal parasites IME.

 

[sandwi54]

I wouldn't worry much if it's only been 3 weeks, which is too short of a time to really be able to pack on that much weight, even if it only eats fast food every day

Give it a couple more months and it should fatten up. It probably lost a good bit of weight during chain of shipping and am just recovering from that. When I picked up my male regal angel, it took about four months to really fatten him up.

 

[lagatbezan]

Thanks guys. yeah, I put in nori but it doesn't touch it and I cant keep it in there for the whole day bc I don't want it to risk a ammonia spike. no pinched stomach at all. Actually has a bump from all the food I have been feeding it. I have only seen it poop once and it was not stringy. Do you think the Metro in the water column would be effective?

 

[Keoki18]

Metro in the water column will help, but adding it to the food is better. It may just be that the tang was suffering from parasites and is now recovering. It does take some time to reculture digestive bacteria after treatments. Just give it some time and feed many small meals instead of gutloading. feeding too large of meals will slow metabolism and may cause blockages or internal abrassions. Feeding Nori, as mentioned, will boost this process if you can get it to eat the sheets. All in all, just give it some time. Hope everything works out!

 

[DasCamel]

Yeah, I feed all my QT fish Metro + food for deworming. Prazi also a given.

 

[lagatbezan]

What is your procedure for adding it to the food? how much food do you use and how do you mix it so it gets absorbed? bc i had a hard time even getting it to dissolve in the water.

 

[zrenegade]

my recipe:

my recipe:

Here's my recipe for my Tang in QT:

• 1 Spoon of Hikari Seaweed Extreme (pellets)
• 5+ drops Selcon
• 5+ drops Garlic extreme or similar
• 1 measure Metro
• 3 measures Focus

Mix the pellets with the Selcon and Garlic and add water slowly with a dropper to create a muchy paste. Then add Metro slowly and mix well and then Focus and mix well (add water as needed to keep the paste mushy).

Note that the past gets dry as you mix so you need to continue adding water to keep it from drying.

Leave the mix dry up a little (appx 15-30 minutes).Then take a ziplock sandwich bag and spread the mix as a very thin layer inside the bag. keep it in the freezer and you can break pieces to feed your Tang as needed.

 

[Keoki18]

^ Good recipe. second

 

[lagatbezan]

thanks guys. I appreciate it.