New Tang

[teddscau]

Hey guys, I just wanted to brag about Pixel, our new captive-bred convict tang my dad brought home on Wednesday. He was already quarantined at the store, so we added him to the display tank after acclimating him.

He hid for around two hours before he decided to dart towards my clownfish, scaring them half to death. So far he's getting along with the other fish and invertebrates (the pyjama cardinalfish were a bit freaked out at first, but now they're fine).

He's very active and has been trying out all the different foods we've been giving him. Today he started eating nori for the first time, which is very exciting. He looks very healthy, although he's a little thin and his sides are itchy (I think he might have scraped his sides a bit while trying to escape the net at the store, and now they're healing). I haven't seen him rub his sides today yet, so I think things are improving. Oh, apparently he was just being fed pellets at the store, so it could have a nutritional component. We've also tested for stray voltage in the tank, but everything seems fine.

I've decided to give him meaty foods four or five times a day (in addition to his grazing discs, nori, and algae) until he becomes nice and plump. We're ordering the three different kinds of Julian Sprung's Sea Veggies. We're also thinking of ordering some live sea lettuce and whatnot to grow in the refugium to supplement his diet. I'm also wondering if I should buy some liquid vitamins to soak his nori in occasionally.

 

[teddscau]

Huh, I just read that they have to eat constantly, otherwise they'll lose weight and die. Just gave him his third serving of nori, so I guess I'll have to keep an eye on his food clip. We're going to pick up some spirulina to mix into some Masstick, and distribute it around the tank for him to graze on. I think I'll order some sort of omega supplement to soak his food in. As for live algae, we're thinking of growing Gracilaria, red nori, Agardhiella tenera, sea lettuce, and Enteromorpha flexuosa. I've started cutting his nori into thin strips before attaching it to the clip, and he seems to really like it.

 

[teddscau]

For someone as small as him (less than 4"), he sure eats a lot. The little guy eats roughly a fifth of a sheet of nori daily. I feed nori at least three times a day, and he likes it when I cut it into thin strips. I also leave a Vitalis Grazing Ring in the tank for a few hours for him to nibble on (he doesn't eat very much of it, but he seems to enjoy it). He also gets fed a cube of Hikari Omega enriched brineshrimp once a day along with the rest of the fish, and gets fed a piece of LRS. I'm going to encourage him to start eating NLS pellets as snacks.

 

[hkgar]

i have, currently, a 7" Atlantic Blue and a Two Barr Rabbitfish who eat 1 large Romaine lettuce leaf. I have a Kole tang that never touches it and gets all he seems to need by nipping it off the rocks and glass (algae that I can't see). I also feed 1/2 sheet of Nori. It is all gone within a half hour.