Skittish Tomini Tang

[angelo184]

I have a 90g display, 120 total system volume reef tank with a lot of open swimming area. I picked up a Tomini tang for an awesome price about a month or so ago, it was $40. I acclimated him slowly and put him in. He hid for a while, i thought nothing of it since most fish when introduced to a new home tend to get scared and want to hide. I noticed after a few days though that he only comes out of the hiding spot he made for himself (a cave in my rock work that opens to the back of my tank) when he seems to be hungry and no one is near the tank. I can be across the room and I seem him swim out and eat off the rocks or nori sheets if they happen to be in the tank. If I approach the tank ever he goes right back to hiding.

Any thoughts on this? Would going in and rearranging the rock work help? He is rather plump so I don't think he is starving, and he is the largest fish in the tank and I never see anyone else chasing him around or even bothering him.

 

[tydtran]

Tangs are skittish by nature and it can take a while for them to adjust to new surroundings. As long as he is eating and healthy, I would not worry. Just give him time. The worst thing would be to disturb him by going in and rearranging things in the tank.

 

[reefwisher]

When I bought my tomini tang I QT him in a 10 gal. tank. He was that way too for awhile hiding behind a rock every time he seen me coming to feed him. But after about 2 weeks he started to get use to me and would be waiting for me to feed him, in fact he would eat out of my hand. I kept him QT for quite awhile,then when I put him in my reef tank,I had no problems of him hiding. He always out swimming and meet me in the same corner of the tank that I trained him to go to for food. I done this with my others fish and it works very well.