Kole yellow eye tang... not eating?

[ca1ore]

thanks for all the feedback. I agree that QT should not be a stressful place, and don't think the fish was stressed by QT. Rather, just terrified of humans entering the room. I would sneak and glance around the corner to see him swimming happily around, but once I enter the room (even at a snail's pace) he would immediately swim to shelter and stay there until I had left. That is why I decided to move him into the display once he was showing signs of possibly starting to eat. In hindsight, I don't think I'll ever move another fish until it starts eating, etc... so lesson learned there.

I find tangs to be quite twitchy in QT. Adding lots of PVC helps, but they all seem to run for cover (except my current Naso who behaves a bit more lik a dog than a fish).

 

[woodnaquanut]

Anyone ever try to put dither fish in with the QT fish? I've had similar experiences with fish in QT. They don't seem to exhibit normal behavior, being much more shy and twitchy. That got me thinking about their normal habitat and what would make QT a more natural situation. Being all alone (solitary confinement!) doesn't seem close to normal.

Within a day or so of being in the DT, the formally shy fish would be out in front, eating like a pig and ignoring us on the dry side!

If you tried using dither fish, what fish was the dither?

Even if you haven't tried dither fish, any thoughts on appropriate dither fish? Ideally they would be free swimming, cheap, tough and non-aggressive.

 

[GroktheCube]

My C. binotatus tang was extremely shy at first as well, and it took him a while to figure out Nori from a clip.

 

[Lion-o]

Anyone ever try to put dither fish in with the QT fish? I've had similar experiences with fish in QT. They don't seem to exhibit normal behavior, being much more shy and twitchy. That got me thinking about their normal habitat and what would make QT a more natural situation. Being all alone (solitary confinement!) doesn't seem close to normal.

Within a day or so of being in the DT, the formally shy fish would be out in front, eating like a pig and ignoring us on the dry side!

If you tried using dither fish, what fish was the dither?

Even if you haven't tried dither fish, any thoughts on appropriate dither fish? Ideally they would be free swimming, cheap, tough and non-aggressive.

i have not personally tried this but I have seen people put 6 line wrasse / yellow tangs in their frag tank. That could be in theory transferred to QT to keep the other fish company.

However, seems a pretty sad existence for the dither fish!!

 

[Marshall O]

I have a pair of clowns in my 46BF that I use as a QT. It has lots of live rock, powerheads, skimmer, UV, HOB 'fuge, etc. I don't use medicines in this tank obviously (just Prazi-pro), but I have found keeping the clowns in there definitely aids in getting new fish acclimated and eating. From my experience, most fish are very nervous being the only fish in the tank (think of being out in the reef when there are no fish to be found...). Whenever I QT a fish by itself, it will almost always stay hidden away all day vs. out and about when there are others with it.

So I guess the moral is, as long as the dither fish are not bullies and are on the hardy side, I am all for keeping them in with new fish.

 

[woodnaquanut]

Thanks to Loin-o and Marshall O.

I have never seen this topic discussed before and was wondering if I had come up with a brilliant leap forward in QT! Of course it could also be an 'as dumb as a bag of rocks' idea! Turns out it's not a new idea and might not be dumb!

To be fair to the OP, I'll move this over to the QT section and see what others think.