I've had three CBBs in two years all purchased from Live Aquaria. The first one lived for a year and nine months, but was a casualty of Hurricane Ike. Some fish did survive, but the CBB, Powder Blue, and Sailfin Tang all bought it during the storm. I bought another CBB from LA and he didn't last the night. He was packaged very poorly, the bag was laying on it's side, along with the fish, with insufficient peanuts to keep it stable. It was my only bad experience with LA, otherwise they have been great and everything arrived in good condition. He appeared near death, but did come back to life during acclimatization, but didn't; make it in the tank. Due to his weak condition he was hassled by a Lawnmower Sailfin Blenny of all things. LA promptly refunded my money. I bought another one shortly thereafter and he's been doing fine ever since. After he was stable and was eating for several weeks, I also introduced another powder blue and a yellow tang a the same time. All three are doing fine together with only a bit of occasional chasing. Also in the tank are three different gobie/shrimp pairs, two Two-Spot Gobies, a Mandarin, four Firefish, two Percula Clowns who live in a Xenia, two Black and one Lawnmower Sailfin Blenny, shrimp, starfish, snails, crabs, etc. Here's some recommendations:
-Live California Blackworms are great food, everything eats them. I order them from Aquaticfoods.com and they arrive Fed Ex the next day. One pound lasts me a month. They require flushing in fresh water daily, I use chilled RO. After flushing, I put a dropper full of Selcon and a dropper full of Garlic Guard in each container. I split a pound up into four 2 quart plastic food storage containers. Leave just enough water in the container to cover the worms. About half an inch or so on the bottom. When I add the Selcon and the Garlic Guard, the worms come alive squirming rapidly in that area. I can't say for sure they are feeding, it could be a reaction to the ph change, but I'm not losing any worms, they stay healthy for a month until all consumed. I assume the worms are eating or absorbing the Selcon and garlic which is through the food chain eaten by the fish and other tank creatures. The fish are very healthy and have recovered from diseases they arrived with. I can't say enough about the worms, they're great and are eaten by everything in the tank
-Clams on the half shell are also a good supplemental food. I usually get them frozen from my LFS. Sometimes I use fresh ones from the grocery store.
-Introduce the CBB first if possible. Let him get established and eating before adding anything that might be aggressive. If you want more than one tang, introduce both at the same time after the CBB is established. I've been successful twice doing it like this.
-Either peppermint shrimp or a CBB consume aiptasia, I'm not sure if it's one or both in my case. After Ike and losing my CBB and peps (I think), I had an aiptasia outbreak. After the CBB and new peps were introduced, all the aiptasia disappeared again. Same thing happened both times with feather dusters unfortunately.
-I believe cleaner shrimp help in curing disease. Both the CBBs that survived after shipping had some of the white cauliflower looking stuff on their fins. My power blue also had several black pimple like spots. After introducing cleaner shrimp in all cases within a few days this stuff disappeared. can't say for sure it was the shrimp, maybe it was the nutritious worms, but it was cured.
-Finally, did I mention blackworms?
