Hippo tang diet

[raen]

Will my new Hipppo eat some of the hair algae that has cropped up? I have seen her eat brine, and flake so far. I will attach a photo soon, she is SO pretty.

 

[LTCrunch]

it should. they love algae and it should be a large part of their diet to begin with

 

[jda]

Hippos are planktivores and won't usually pick too much. They should be fed a 50/50 diet of meaty foods and some sort of veggies. I have never see one eat any kind of macro with regularity - however, I suppose that it could happen.

Brine is worthless. Switch to mysis.

You will need to get these fish a good vitamin supplement or else they will develop hole-in-the-head as they grow - they seem to need a good amount of vitamin A. I use zoe and selcon unless I am feeding New Life Spectrum pellets in which case those seem to be nutritious enough.

 

[raen]

Will the supps hurt anything else in the tank? Ie: corals, clowns, cards, shrimp, nems?

 

[jda]

Nope. Soak the food in them a few times a week.

 

[package]

My blue hippo will eat nori, flakes, any frozen cube and will also eat the macro algae growing in my sump (chaeto??//thin stringy). It does not seem to digest is so well due to the fact that I sometimes see strings of it 1-2" hanging out the poop shoot.

 

[ConcreteReefer]

Nori Nori Nori...

My Old hippo would eat a 4"x8" sheet a day all by himself.. along with whatever else I fed the tank... Big pooper

 

[raen]

So I have offered all of the above, and she seems to only like the frozen "meaty" foods. Seems happy, but does hide a lot, do you all find the same to be true? No one is picking on her, she just hangs out i the back behind the rock structure.

 

[abereefur]

hippos are omnivors. meaning they will eat nearly anything you put in the tank. that means once its done with the algae, then you can drop in flakes, pellets, mysis, or dried seaweed. all will be great foods for the tang.

 

[thor32766]

The blue eating hair algea will be truly rare to say the least. Make sure and feed him nori. To often in home aquariums we forget to feed tangs their algea. Some people don't like it, but I swear by romaine lettuce along with the nori. Daily feeding of it would be advised. Blues are known to hide when introduced to the tank. He will become bolder as time goes on.

 

[lowendmelody]

nori sheets and be patient and leave them in the tank for 24 hours at a time, the tang will catch on. You could try soaking it in garlic guard and vitamans.

 

[reef_doug]

Julian Sprungs Purple Sea Veggies is a favorite along with the green. Hippos need algae and Nori is one of the best.

Agree, drop the brine and use mysis instead. If you do decide to treat them with brine, get the spirulina enriched variety.

 

[N0okie]

My blue hippo hides all the time, but he is still a little guy at only around 3". He has been in the tank for 3 months or so, with only anthias, and a flame hawk, so he is the largest fish in the tank. I guess some of them are shy while others are not.

 

[mrp2g]

I have had my hippo for about 5 years. He has suddenly developed a taste for zoanthids. He tears them up! If for some reason he does not get a sheet of nori a day, he begins to rip my zoanthids apart.
I would get rid of him if this fish wasn't the first tang i bought and he wasnt so darn nice. I guess this is my curse!!!

 

[Dante_JoseCuerv]

I read somewhere that they become very aggressive if they don't get their needed algae intake. I've heard of them ripping tanks apart when they're not fed nori or ulva or whatever they prefer.