Lightly colored Foxface

[orcafood]

I have a One Spot Foxface fish that is around 4-5 in long.
It is consistently a very bleached out yellow.
It is the largest fish in the tank (6 other fish all under 3 in), the water is good (corals are thriving) and the foxface is fed nori every 1-2 days.

Why could the colors of this fish possibly be so washed out?

 

[A sea K]

I have the same issue with my Mag. Foxface, all the yellow in his finnage is washed almost completely white.
If the Nori every 1-2 days is all your feeding that could be part of the problem. I feed daily meaty foods as well as daily Nori.
I had some concerns but after looking into it, it is somewhat common and some claim it is attributed to the bright lighting in our tanks. I believe this to be my problem as I am certain he recieves a good varied diet.
I am in the process of changeing to 14K bulb to see if this helps any and the coral stays healthy.
I have only changed out 1 bulb of 3 so far but have noticed a little more color so I am hopefull.

 

[Bebo77]

any pic?

and what are you feeding and how often?

 

[DougBushBC]

Mine will go days where he is bleached out, but he snaps out of it when hes eating and if he gets a good meal, he's bright yellow for days. I would feed him a little more (flake, pellets, mysis even) and see. Mine just gets stressed sometimes (tomato clown nipping his fins) maybe you have an agressor?

 

[orcafood]

I don't have a current picture yet, sorry. I will have one soon though.
There are no aggresors who could be attacking the foxface.
I think it may be his diet, besides the nori every one to two days, he has only been getting brine shrimp and cyclopeeze every 2-3 days.
The idea that the lights may be doing this is also intruiging. I never new light could bleach a fish?

 

[DougBushBC]

He is, for the most part, an Herbivore, try feeding Veggie Flakes daily.

 

[mrwilson]

I'd also switch from brine to mysis, not just for this fish, but generally. Brine is useful for when you have a fish that won't eat anything else, but has little nutritional value, and preferably shouldn't be a staple.

 

[A sea K]

Here he is 3 days after I got him,

And about 1-1/2 months later

If I can get some decent pics of his current color I'll try to post them later.

 

[cl2ysta1]

i'd say a better diet. Brine shrimp is not nutritious for fish, and i cant imagine him getting enough cyclopeze to sustain him. Start feeding a variety of foods like formula two flake, sally's marine cuisine or emerald entree, along with frequent feedings of nori.

 

[falconut]

My Foxface did the same thing. He was bright yellow in the LFS, but when I added him to the tank he rarly got the bright yellow. I believe it was the Yellow Tang. It seamed that in the beginning whenever the Foxface was Yellow the Tang would chase him. So I guess he just adapted. He would occationally turn bright yellow for a few days and the Tang wouldn't bother him, but he would still go back to the dull yellow. That's just my experience.

 

[black_majik]

After I added a multivitamin supplement to the food as well as garlic I was doubtful it would do anything, but my foxface is super yellow he almost glows in pictures. I'd love to show you, but I cant find this stupid USB connecting wire....until then just imagine.

 

[A sea K]

black_majik,
What multi vitamin supplement do you use? With such positive results on your fish I may give it a try.
I used to use Kent Zoe and Garlic Xtreme but after several months and no difference in my fish I have since stopped. Noticed no difference when I stopped using it either.

 

[jda]

It definately needs a better diet. Mysis and New Life Spectrum pellets could help a lot. Remember, they are omnivores, not herbivores - some nutritious meat will help every once in a while.

 

[black_majik]

Brightwell Vitamarin M
Seachem's Garlic

That is the correct spelling, this is soaked and frozen with the "general" food ( mixture of mysis, algaes, cycopeeze etc.) which the foxface consumes and for veggie matter he eats both purple and green Julian Sprung Sea Veggies. ( no vitamins added)
I must warn you the vitamin helps all reef animals including filter feeders so don't worry about spikes in nitrate and also it smells horrible and "sticks" to you if touched. Here is my feeding schedule:

Day 1: "General" food, no algae

Day:3 Algae strips and either shrimp pellets or straight cycopeeze

Day: 5 Algae strips

Day 7: "General" food

Repeat

So you can clearly see he doesn't get the multi vitamin every day to avoid overdose. He has a normal diet just a fortified meal every week to make sure he is in check to my knowledge it is easy to overdose the vitamins. If I were you I would soak a mere drop or two on to the veggies a few minutes prior to feeding hopefully after a few weeks the color will come out. I will try to get some pictures, but my foxface is very yellow.

 

[A sea K]

Thanks black_majik,
My routine is similar to yours and I'll heed your advice not to overdo it. I'll try to find some through local sources this weekend.

 

[black_majik]

I also noticed your foxface seems to be a new member and still may need a little adjustment time. I wouldn't get crazy over overdosing basically you will notice the fish acted sick and losing color, at that point lower the amount or rate the of the vitamin's and they will get better.

 

[orcafood]

I think I am going to pick up some supplementary vitamins and see if they help. I ll feed vitamins once a week as this seems to work for you. Other then the vitamins, our feeding schedule is pretty close.