How do you like your Kole Yellow Eye Tang

I've had my Kole tang for about a year. Nice fish. Took about 2.5 weeks to start eating when i first got it ( I was getting nervous!). Eats everything now. It gets along with everyone except a velvet fairy wrasse that I had to sell. It was purple as well so maybe that had something to do with it. He would chase it anytime it would try and come out of the rock work. I never thought I was going to be able to catch the wrasse. Luckily it jumped in the overflow and I was able to get him a new home.
 
I love the Yellow Eye Kole Tang, I have in with Anthias, Blenny, Wrasse, and Picassos. My Starry Blenny used to kind of bully the others but the Tang keeps him in check. No issues and all inhabitants are happy!
 
Kole Tang (yellow eye}

Kole Tang (yellow eye}

Hi Spieszak : I had a Kole Tang and he had a good personality , definitly my favorite tang always laid back but very busy grazing on rocks and algea on glass. A must have fish. Happy Reefing! I also have a 6-line wrasse for bristle-worm contoll...:dance:
 
I love my Kole Tang. He is easily my most favorite fish. Have had him for about 1 1/2 years. He would eat anything I put in the tank, kelp flakes, frozen, etc. but wouldn't touch a sheet of nori. I added a yellow tang about 4 mons ago and I think the yt taught the kole to eat the nori. Now they take turns grazing on the clip.

My tangs live in a 240 along with chromis, flame hawk, flame angel, clarkii clowns, 2 evil striped damels, and assorted other critters.
 
Kole are from the genus ctenochaetus and have brushes for teeth, and differ from zebrasomas and acanthurus which have the normal pointier mouth. Because of this main difference, ctenochaetus can't bite off anything. So if you have calurpa leaf, he can't eat it like another tang, but can only graze off the surface of the leaf and since the leaf moves around, he doesn't quite get in contact with it. He can eat off any other solid surface and is great at preventing hair algae buildup, but once it gets beyond a certain bushiness, he can't eat it anymore. Since his mouth is so bulbus, he is also no good at getting into the fine spaces. Ctenochaetus are as much as a denitris feeder as they are algae grazers.

Also, I noticed a major difference in how koles fight as compared to the other genus, in addition to the usual try and slash him with his claudal spike, they also bite each other on the side, which cause this terrible rash like wound, since they scrape off the skin.

Summary - you can have a tank full of tangs, but only one ctenochaetus.

They are really hardy, I keep one in my main tank, and one in my calurpa filled refugium.
 
I have had mine for a week now. Likes to graze but very shy. Wont eat from a clip or frozen food. Any ideas to get him to eat more?
 
I love my yellow eye. Have had him over a year. Good eater but is a bit aggressive with other fish. He doesn't like by bicolor blenny at all.
 
Bristles are detritovores mostly. I have kept them for years and they generally don't eat from the clip, preferring to graze the rocks and follow the other tangs around hoping for a 'treat'. Give them plenty of rock to graze and they usually take frozen eventually.
 
Back
Top