My tangs are weird and starting to concern me a bit.

[coolingeffect]

I have a yellow and a hippo tang that seem happy and healthy in my 125. The water parameters are perfect except for a little phosphate and nitrate (the chaeto in my fuge is slowly taking these down) the tangs eat on the rock a bit here and there but refuse to touch the nori im putting in the tank and go nuts eating the frozen carnivore food i add for my cardinal and clowns. The clown picks at the nori a bit but the tangs seem really uninterested. Should i be concerned about them adopting a largely carnivore diet or do you think they are getting enough veggies from their rock picking?

 

[snorvich]

Age of tank? Water parameters?

 

[sfboarders]

Are these new fish? As long as they're eating you should be ok. Is the nori on a clip or rubber banded on a rock? Try putting rubber banding it to a rock as it's more natural for them.

 

[happyclam]

I have the same problem with my yellow tang too. I have only had him for about a month. So far he loves the Spectrum pellets I feed the chromis and gobies, but pretty much snubs the nori clip. I have seen him take some nips from the clip before though so I still put it the tank every day. I also grind a piece of nori between my fingers in front of the powerhead. It creates a lot of 1/4"-1" pieces that the tang then grabs from the water column. All the other fish seem to sample the algae as well.

Good luck!

 

[Recty]

What type of "frozen carnivore food" are you feeding? A lot of them have vegetable matter in them, look at the list of ingredients, you might be surprised how much algae they are getting

My tangs always loved my meaty foods but they loved nori as well, I never really cared much what they ate as long as they were eating.

 

[coolingeffect]

my tank is 125gallons ammonia 0 nitrite 0 ph8.2 nitrate about 5ppm and about 10ppm phos. The tank was set up for several years before i got it and i kept the sandbed as well as the rock. The food is listed as carnivore food but does have spirulina on the ingredients list but what i see them going after are clearly brineshrimp for the most part. They both eat like pigs and are looking awesome though the blue hates the little 3 stripe damsel and chases him around a bit. I tried grinding some of it up into flakes and they went after it with the same attitude they go after the brines and such. i can see where they have been picking at the rock as there are little clean spots in the middle of an algae infested spot. So i shouldnt be concerned?

 

[jjk_reef00]

Sounds like they are both small fish. If that is the case, as they grow their appetite will increase 10 fold. As long as they are currently eating a variety of foods I wouldn't be to concern. They will eventually eat the nori.

 

[coolingeffect]

the blue is about 3 inches and the yellow is almost 4. The blue actually looks kinda fat and im hoping everything is working ok for him internally. Ive had em for just over 2 weeks and they really seem to be doing well, just concerned as i really like both of them and want to keep em around.

 

[agreeive?fish]

as long as they are eating i wouldnt worry to much my hippo will not touch nori but thats allmy yellow will eat. but my hippo is strange as he thinks he is the 3rd in a maroon clown trio, infact yesterday the female maroon took a piece of shrimp from the stars and stripes puffer and brought it to the hippo twice.. just because we think a fish should eat this or that dosent mean its going to as each has thier own likes and dislikes / prefrences just like any other animal the yellow and hippo both went into the tank at the same time and both were aprox dime size aprox 6 months ago and the hippo has been a blue maroon clownfish since the 1st 10 seconds in the tank

 

[75gsalt]

My blue won't touch nori either, I feed veggie flakes to him as well as brine shrimp

 

[sanchoy]

Some of my tangs will only eat the nori if it is clipped to my scraper magnet. If it is free floating they tend to swim by it more.