Hippo Tang eating zoos! What should I do?

[IZZY'SREEF]

My Hippo Tang is eating a colony of zoos. It only pics on the one colony, though, leaving the others alone.
I've had the colony for over a month and it never touched them. Then I noticed two days ago several poyps looking ragged. So I observed the tank for a few minutes and I cought the sucker in the act.
It seams to really like them because now it pics off of the colony like a patch of algae, and my 8 inch beautiful colony is looking bad.
What should I do? I feel like harpooning the dang thing, but, I've had the fish for years and now it decides to be a zoanthid eater. I don't want to take the fish out because my daughter will freak.
What to do

 

[Pazazz]

trade it for a wrasses

 

[Jayreefer]

Or trade him for a tang that won't eat the zoos.

 

[artnsx]

do you have other food for the tang available in the tank ? dried seaweed, live seaweed....if is has something to graze on it probably won't resort to eating your zoas

 

[mfinn]

Once the tang decides zoanthids are a food source, he will eat them all.
Been there, done that, got the bare rocks.

 

[eyebedam]

I got a zoo eating tang myself along with xenia & anthellia. Trade it in on another or take it to a taxidermist & get it mounted for your daughter.

 

[hrstrnr]

Trade it in at the LFS for something else.

 

[Ken668]

mfinn is correct. I had a BHT that would sit and munch on a patch of zoas with a full clip of Nori sitting 6" away from him. Purchased a fish trap and 2 days later he was happy in someone elses FO tank.

 

[IZZY'SREEF]

Thanks for all of the responses. Unfortunately, they are what I suspected they would be.Part of the problem is that my skimmer and refugium with chaeto are really doing their jobs, maybe too good. I don't have much algae growing in my display at all. It's almost nonexistant. Maybe not such a good thing with a Tang. I'll try one more thing and then trade it.
Does anyone let dried nori sit in the tank all day? I have been feeding mine by hand, pieces at a time. Do you think if I feed it more nori, maybe letting it pick on the nori all day it would eventually ignore the zoos???

 

[mfinn]

No

 

[Ken668]

I don't think the tang will change his feeding habits at this point. But for future reference, it's a good idea to leave seaweed for most types of tangs to munch on all day. In nature they will typically forage and graze all day. A nip here and a nip there will eventually lead to a fat belly. I will usually put two 4"x4" sheets (one red and one green) of Nori in my tank every couple days. It's usually gone in 24 hours, but this tends to keep the tangs from wreaking havoc.

 

[mfinn]

This is my third attempt to keep a tang in a large tank (180). From the start I tried to keep nori on a clip all the time. I also would feed more often, but my current Purple Tang decided that the zoanthids were fair game.