Quantity to feed a desjardini

[jccaclimber]

I recently added these two guys to my 170 reef. They will be in it 6-9 months as I set up a larger tank (126"l, 34"d, 31"h). The desjardini is ~5 inches long. The previous owner claims both are ~3 years old, although fish don't exactly come with papers.

Existing stock in the tank are:
1 Yellow tang (smaller)
1 Green mandarin
1 Pink spotted watchman
5 Blue/green chromis

After some brief time in the acclimation box the yellow and desjardini are getting along great. I have a large sump and longer term re-homing plan for the yellow if things go south. Same with the flame if it decides to eat a coral I'm more attached to.

Currently I'm feeding nori (on a clip), and 2-3 cubes of various frozen foods (PE mysis, brine, algae) daily. Everyone in the tank is a pig and eats everything offered.

I've found a lot of threads about what to feed a picky desjardini, but that isn't a problem for me, this guy is a pig. The question is how much should I be feeding him? He is fat and healthy right now, and I'd like to keep it that way. I'm worried that the 2-3 cubes of food may not be enough as it is all eaten very quickly, but also am not sure where the line of overfeeding starts.

 

[Dmorty217]

You should continuously offer Nori if it's eaten. Tangs constantly graze. Feed as much food as can be consumed but not mess up the parameters.

 

[jason2459]

You should continuously offer Nori if it's eaten. Tangs constantly graze. Feed as much food as can be consumed but not mess up the parameters.

Totally that. Tangs are pigs if healthy.

I feed a good 3-4 full nori sheets daily plus I mix up NLS algae max pellets with nls marine pellets fed 4 times daily. Then add in another 2-3 servings of frozen meaty foods... i feed a lot and built up overtime. The tank keeps adjusting.

 

[ali1]

Until he says no

 

[jccaclimber]

Totally that. Tangs are pigs if healthy.

I feed a good 3-4 full nori sheets daily plus I mix up NLS algae max pellets with nls marine pellets fed 4 times daily. Then add in another 2-3 servings of frozen meaty foods... i feed a lot and built up overtime. The tank keeps adjusting.

A "sheet" in my case is roughly an 8" square. Are you feeding this daily to one fish?

The nori is available almost continuously. I put in a 1/3 sheet when I get home, then add more when I go to bed if it is gone. Normally there is still some left in the morning when I leave for work so I don't add any more then.

How about the frozen foods? I have a feeling this guy would pop his stomach open before he stopped eating mysis if I kept offering it, or is that not a realistic concern?

 

[jccaclimber]

Also, any tricks to the nori? At first I was just putting the sheet in the clip, but he was tearing it off and it was ending up in the overflow. Lately I've been folding it in half twice before clipping it and that seems to keep it attached as it is eaten.

 

[jason2459]

A "sheet" in my case is roughly an 8" square. Are you feeding this daily to one fish?

The nori is available almost continuously. I put in a 1/3 sheet when I get home, then add more when I go to bed if it is gone. Normally there is still some left in the morning when I leave for work so I don't add any more then.

How about the frozen foods? I have a feeling this guy would pop his stomach open before he stopped eating mysis if I kept offering it, or is that not a realistic concern?

If I had a single tang I'd still feed at least 1 full sheet or more.

I got my tangs to eat nori with LRS Algae sheets as they weren't going for other kinds. But since then I have gotten them to eat any kind which I pick up at an Asian market.

A full sheet to me is like 8x8 maybe. The LRS are cut in half sheets.

These are half sheets too but feed 2 at a time with one on each side of the tank to spread the fish up and not all going to one spot.

I fold them up, into maybe 2x2 pieces, and clip them with TLF mag clips. Pieces still rip off but they get grabbed pretty quick. If anything gets sucked down the overflow becomes food for a billion pods.

 

[Myles]

I wrap my nori on a piece of pvc and use rubber bands to hold it in place.
myles

 

[BlackTip]

That is a lot of Nori you guys are feeding.

I have 3 Yellow (3.5"), 1 blue 3", 1 Naso 5", 1 Foxface 5", and I only feed one 4X4 sheet of Nori and couple of frozen food cubes for the other guys. I wrap the nori around a PVC pipe with rubber bands. Works very well.

The fish are very fat and healthy and have growing at a good pace.

What are the reasons behind overfeeding, then over exporting the waste? To me, it seams self-induced troubles.

 

[jason2459]

Corals and other microfauna like it.

 

[ca1ore]

My 6 tangs, including a Desjardini, get one 4x8 sheet of nori each day, and then along with the rest of the fish, three Frozen feedings daily. Key is to look for weight loss. If you start to see that, you need to feed more. Otherwise ok.

 

[jccaclimber]

He seems to have stabilized at between a quarter and half sheet per day, plus a variety of frozen foods. I thought he was plump when I got him, but he actually seems to be plumping up a bit overall compared to three weeks ago, so I guess the feeding is working.