Nori survey

[Sangogo]

I've owned many blue hippo tangs over the years and most of them ate voraciously without effort. We got a new hippo tang this past weekend, and this guy does nothing but hide in his cave. He did eat plenty at the store though, but they didn't have much rocks for him to hide in. I'd be less concerned, but he has a tiny speck of ich on his side, which means eating and getting nutrients is especially important right now. I did some searching on here and found a lot of useful info about regarding getting tangs to eat.

Some people seem to dislike feeding terrestrial foods, but everyone appears to agree that nori is the best food out there for their tangs. Being that this is Japan, there are tons of seaweed types here, including nori, wakame, konbu, hijiki and yet other types. I bought some cut seaweed and the tang just sort of nips at it, but this is at least some progress. (Broccoli was a no-go, and besides, it costs more here than seaweed does.)

I am thinking of trying "seaweed salad", which is assorted dried seaweed. As this can't be clipped, I'm a bit concerned about nitrate levels though, but it's very cheap especially considering the amount of variety.

What types of seaweed are you guys purchasing and how do you feed it to your tank? Mostly, I'd like to see if anyone is trying stuff other than nori, but I'd love to know of any creative ways to feed nori other than the store-bought clip method. (It's actually fairly hard to find these clips here for some reason, and I was pretty impressed with some of the DIY clips I found while searching through the threads here.)

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

FWIW, the hippo might take better to some zooplankton foods like mysis or enriched brine, as they are naturally more zooplanktivorous in the wild (as far as tangs go that is).

 

[Sangogo]

He doesn't come out when I feed mysis to the tank. I don't have any enriched brine, but the store does feed them regular frozen brine fish. The bits of nori are the first thing I have seen him eat, but I hope he will eventually also eat the mysis.

At this point, I figure that because I have access to so much nori, I might as well see what works from that.

 

[lisafoster]

I feed my tang mysis and nori. Try the above advice my tang took awhile before it took nori but ate mysis right away,

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

But to answer your original question - I tried adding some variety to my greens, bought some dried sea veggies from a health food store. I got digitata kelp, kombu kelp, alaria, dulse, and fresh laver (nori) - my tangs, butterflies, and angels ignore them all! Guess they just want nori processed in to sheets.

 

[Stanley-Reefer]

Mine loves NLS pellets, ON seaweed selects on a clip, pe mysis, H20 and ON formulas 1 and 2...

 

[lisafoster]

My yellow did not eat for the first week I had him his stomach shrunk I was so worried he was just stressed he eats like a pig now

 

[EvilMel]

I had a very difficult time getting a naso to eat even though she was a big eater at the LFS. I searched and searched and eventually found a reference to rubberbanding the nori to a rock. Best thing to do is to rubberband the nori very tightly down so that not much of it sticks up.

I bet it will work.

 

[Sangogo]

But to answer your original question - I tried adding some variety to my greens, bought some dried sea veggies from a health food store. I got digitata kelp, kombu kelp, alaria, dulse, and fresh laver (nori) - my tangs, butterflies, and angels ignore them all! Guess they just want nori processed in to sheets.

How did you feed them these? I'm curious as to the best way to put in the non-sheet seaweeds.

I imagine that kombu is a little tough for them. I myself ignore it when it comes out on the dinner table. :lol2:

 

[sirjohn]

I've had some blue tangs that were out and about and eating from the moment they hit the water and others that hid for days on end. Eventually though, the hiders did come out and swim in the open, even if they didn't always eat right away. After some more time, they would all start eating and then they would eat everything. I even got one extremely skittish blue tang to actually eat nori out of my hand, although that took months. So long as you got a healthy specimen, a non-aggressive tank and good water parameters, I think he'll eventually come around and start eating.

I wish I had easy access to fresh nori like you do! For what it's worth I feed my tangs Julian Sprung's SeaVeggies (usually green) and they can't get enough of it.

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

How did you feed them these? I'm curious as to the best way to put in the non-sheet seaweeds.

I imagine that kombu is a little tough for them. I myself ignore it when it comes out on the dinner table. :lol2:

Rubberbanded to a small rock. I usually feed this way. The tangs will eat from the clip but it looks ugly and more fish can get at it this way.

 

[Floowid]

I take dried nori sheets and shred them up into little tiny bits, like 1/8th inch each, then soak them in a little bit of garlic oil for a few minutes. I use Garlic Extreme. Turn off the pumps and add the garlic nori sheets. I have never seen a tang that can resist this.

For creative ways to feed Nori, I tear a sheet of about as much as I think the tangs need, and sandwich it between the magnets of my glass cleaner. Then I can move it wherever I want, and as soon as the fish are done with it, I just pull off the magnet, the little piece that was left floats off and the fish eat that. No mess and easy.