Clown Tang

I've had a clown tang for over a year and a half. It is about 9" and has not grown that much. It eats pellets and is very hardy.

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Sometimes the yellow tangs try to "stake out" the food rock (nori rubberbanded to a rock).He usually just goes in grabs a mouthful or two and swims away,relying on speed.
 
REKN was right in that something is slowing/stunting the growth of your fish and this has many affects, one of which is a decreased life expectancy which is a problem. And you dont need to personally own a fish to know the ins and outs of that species, just like someone that owns one, may not actually know much at all about that species.
 
According to my old literature,you must treat with copper for at least 2 weeks with a min. level of .15ppm so you need to test/adjust every day.Max. for fish is .25ppm,but I have read that these fish are sensitive so I kept the level to .17-.18 ppm.A week is definitly not long enough because of the life cycle of the parasite(s).Copper is good for a variety of maladies .
 
No, I logically deduced from my experience with many other fish, my readings on the subject and from my observations that I have made from observing friends fish of this type over time, when given proper housing and nutrition, your fish should already be full grown. It has only grown to half of its adult size in 6 years, that's not ideal.
 
Yes, I agree many life forms adjust to their situations.So tell us what size tank and how much growth over what period of time.
 
I can tell you just want to be argumentative, so Im out after answering your question

1:a lot bigger than yours
2:a lot faster than yours


:wavehand:
 
I dont know if this would help, but when I get a pick eater, I soak the nori in water or whatever vitamins and put the nori in the powerhead, the PH shreds the nori and spreads it all over the tank and the fish goes after the fast moving piece of Nori.
 
Thanks inthesea, but mine has ignored floating bits of the nori. Well, he is eating mysis and cyclops, so I'm not going to panic yet. I'll just be sure to soak them in vitamins. Eventually he'll go after the nori. I had yellow once that ignored the nori for the 1st week. But dvmkv's tang is in worse shape, so maybe this will help him.
 
I wasn't just throwing numbers but was giving information from scientifically reviewed journals. The figure I quoted was from John Randall's book, shore fishes of the south pacific.

Here are some other papers in peer reviewed journals that go into greater detail

http://www.springerlink.com/content/tfyf3ma0hqcu6jlq/fulltext.pdf

http://www.botany.hawaii.edu/basch/uhnpscesu/pdfs/sam/Craig1997AS.pdf

Wetfish, While I commend your skills for the success that you have had with your clown tang you must understand that your experience is not the norm in any sense of the word. I have known many aquarists with much larger tanks who met with failure either because the fish outgrew the tank, didn't survive long or had severe aggression problems.
 
Thanks for the info.While some may believe that I was arguementative,I truly am looking for information.My baby has seemed to be happy for a long while,but I know that sooner or later he will outgrow my current tank.I am trying to get an idea of how soon that will be.
 
Thanks for the info.While some may believe that I was arguementative,I truly am looking for information.My baby has seemed to be happy for a long while,but I know that sooner or later he will outgrow my current tank.I am trying to get an idea of how soon that will be.

No offense, but I think the "sooner or later" was long ago. After 5 years, he has only grown 3 inches - you would probably expect at least double that in a much larger tank. At this point, I don't see what motivation you would have to upgrade your tank for your seemingly stunted growth but otherwise "happy" clown tang - if a clown tang doing the famous restless lap behavior that is common in animals whose quarters are too cramped (you see it in the zoo all the time, bears/lions/panda etc walking constant and nearly identical laps) doesn't bother you at this point, then you might as well keep things as they are?
 
I would first like to apologize to dvmkv for totally hijacking his thread.
Well after having gone thru the second paper provided by JamesJR at www.botany.hawaii.edu (I was not able to access the first) I learned a couple of things.
Acanthuru lineatus (clown Tang) is a territorial reef fish coming back to the same area again and again.
This fish is harvested for food.
The mortality rate: app. 1% of the population on the reef studied survived the first year of life...page#687.
Fish length :the longest fish measured was app. 11" (28.9cm in 1988)....page#690
1inch=.393cm
At sexual maturity,app. 4 years old average length was 18cm(app. 7 inches)...page#684 top rht.
I like many on this forum have read that these fish grow LARGE.This article does not bear that out.Additionally Liveaquaria.com lists this fish as UP TO 1'3"... which to me means not every fish is that size.
 
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