(Re)joining the fray
(Re)joining the fray
I've been on hiatus from the hobby entirely for the past 3-4 yrs now and just this past summer started up my 135 reef again with just live rock this time. I've had only a 3" niger trigger in there for about 6 mos. now, not really anxious to add another fish until one caught my fancy.
So just to prove I'm no smarter now than the previous time I was into this stuff that next fish turned out to be a regal angel. It's "just" a grey-bellied (and pale-tailed - no one seems to mention that attribute much) regal, about 4" and fat.
The store had just gotten him in and unlike other regals I had seen he was gregarious, swimming normally, and eating live brine shrimp with some enthusiasm. So I thought about it over lunch and went back and bought him :rollface:
This was yesterday. He ate some brine in my tank and mouthed some flakes before spitting them out. He also picked at some thawed scallop.
Today I was dismayed to find him flashing on rocks and shimmying a fair amount in the morning. This behavior had largely abated by afternoon, but I suspect I'm not in for a completely smooth ride. Today he ate more brine, swallowed a couple flakes, picked at some nori, and then discovered he really liked the Spectrum pellets that others have mentioned in this thread (which I read a large portion of last night). So he is eating nutritious food already, yay. I also discovered about half of a 1" ball sponge that was on some rock was missing, lol.
Back in my previous life I was "successful" in keeping a Moorish Idol alive for almost 2 years in my full reef. He was such a great fish and pet that his death was the beginning of my decline in interest in the hobby. I mention it because I have been musing about the similarities between these two difficult fish. They both seem to have similar history and prognosis in an aquarium. They are difficult to get to feed, generally, but this varies greatly by specimen prompting much discussion about collecting practices and regional differences between fish. If they do eat then they often seem to thrive, right up until their unexpected and fairly sudden death a few months to a few years in the future, rarely with a solid assignable cause. They also both tend to do better generally in full reef tanks. And they both are reported to eat mostly sponges and tunicates in the wild.
This is probably just a long way around of saying what everyone suspects, but to me it's a pretty good case for that nutritional deficiency theory. I know that shortly before my Idol died I had been very busy traveling for work and had cut back considerably on the variety of foods that I offered him. I also had slacked on the reef upkeep a bit and it was beginning to degrade very slightly, which could implicate water quality, but I don't personally believe that otherwise healthy fish can be that sensitive to water fluctuations and still thrive in the wild.
So I think the connection between the two fish is diet. Humans have lost the ability to synthesize vitamin C as well as quite a number of other things we are dependent upon our diet to provide. It seems actually probable that this would also happen to highly evolved reef fish.
The thing that started me thinking about all this was actually the weird head wagging behavior of my regal when it would swallow something for the first few hours after putting it in the tank, as if it tasted really sour. My idol had also done that initially.
Sorry if this is rambling and redundant to other posts, but some of you may remember that I like to write :fun4: Wish me luck, I love angels!