Yellow tang weirdness

[lm2002]

Hi all,

Instead of getting it counselling, I figured I'd talk to you all about my yellow tang's "problem".

For the three years I've had it, at night when it gets dark ... well, it flips upside down and swims around like normal. It goes around the normal places in the tank, looking at you like nothing is out of the ordinary. This goes on until it parks and has a sleep. It never does it during the day time.

I'm not at all worried about it, it is just a funny, endearing "quirk". Has anyone experienced similar things?

LM

 

[JR719]

Yep,

That is what mine did for several weeks. Then it settled down.
Don't worry about it.

JR

 

[iCam]

[welcome]

 

[catdoc]

Mine doesn't swim upside-down, but it's still weird. It thinks it's an angelfish, go figure.

 

[Andrew]

[welcome]

 

[finding nemo]

What??? No pictures of this phenomina??

 

[lm2002]

I'll have a crack at taking some video evidence tonight.

LM :idea:

 

[finding nemo]

Ahhh evidence, thats what we need for this story. Right JR?

 

[ReefHotSpot]

I wonder if you're getting ambient light from the room bouncing off of something white on the bottom of your tank like sand. Fish aren't so prone to gravity as we are and light room light bouncing off of sand at the bottom of your tank may make him think that he is upside down. It might be similar to moonlight. When diving, i've often noticed that almost all fish will flip upside down in caves when they are on the top wall.

Just a thought.

Max
reefhotspot.com

 

[ReefHotSpot]

Another note, my tanks are almost all barebottom tanks. I had a giffith's angel in once and after a couple of days of eating and doing fine he started doing flips which, of course, stressed me out. I threw in a couple of pieces of live rock in the tank and made a little cave for him and he immediately stopped the behaviour and went back to eating. It impressed upon me the "psychological" component of stress and its potential to cause the health of an animal to deteriorate. Your tang sounds like he is doing great and it sounds like a cool little quirk. I've never had one do that for me. I would be interested to see if he is trying to orient himself toward to "moonlight". I'm partial to my thesis.

Max
reefhotspot.com

 

[afishyonados]

That's not algae he's eating!
I think redrunblue is on the right track.

 

[lm2002]

Well, evidence was called for, so I have acquired such - picture available here and movie here. Please don't be too hard on my camera work, these night time shots are tough and taking movies is even tougher!

So next to the star of the moment in the picture is "brown tang". For the record, brown tang prefers (and has always preferred) the more conventional orientation within the tank, regardless of the time of day. Redrunblue, I think you might be onto something with the ambient light theory. Although the bottom of the tank is crushed coral, crusty with coraline it seems to go upside down at the end of the tank nearest the closest ambient light source.

Or maybe he's just a wacky fish... :bum:

LM