Yet another yellow tang that won't eat!!!

pleuralplexus

pleuralplexus

New member
I have to admit, I am sick of buying fish for my reef! Unless I get the really aggressive crappy type of fish like damsels, I have no luck getting a new fish to thrive! Nice docile fish like tangs and angels always give me trouble. So frustrating! :fun5:

Two days ago my kids talked me into buying a yellow tang. And of course, he is slowly starving himself. He is visibly emaciated at this point. There are no ther fish in the tank. Its a 28g nanocube reef that's been running for 6 nonths. Any ideas about how to trick him into NOT starving to death??

So far I've tried kelp and lettuce on a clip, omnivore frozen food, and frozen brine shrimp. I'm stumped. :confused:
 
I remember when I first started in this hobby with my BIO cube, I was a noob. I used one of those plastic hydrometers to measure the salinity in my tank. Well - in my opinion those things are not very accurate! The fish wouldn't eat because I was putting them in some crazy salinity water and they were probably stressed out. I have the Milwaukee battery operated unit now.
 
How large is the fish?

He could just be stressed out from being placed in way too small of a tank. Stressed fish typically dont eat or barely nibble.
 
He's clearly agitated. The fish spends his waking moments looking for an exit along the margins of the tank. The thing is, there's plenty of volume for him to swim around in. I built only a small live rock stack and he is a smaller tang; only about 1.5 to maybe around 2 inches nose to tail.
 
If he goes too long without eating put him in QT and see if he eats when he's the only tank mate


Life motto: "No rain, no rainbow"
 
Sometimes, especially with fish like tangs, just because it has "volume" doesnt mean it will be comfortable.

ANY dimension of 28g tank is too small for a tang, even a 2" tang. In the wild, even a 2" tang, covers that area and keeps moving in about 10 seconds spent foraging. They just are not good small tank fish. It doesnt matter on the size of the tang (although obviously a 8" yellow tang would be worse) even the small ones do NOT do well in small tanks.

The fact that it's pacing always trying to get out should tell you something. He isnt happy in the space you've provided.

Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but putting a tang in a small tank is just asking for it to slowly waste away and die. It so rarely works out well it isnt worth trying.
 
It's a very small space for a yellow tang.

I would try this though... don't clean the glass, let it get completely dirty. He could be obsessed with his own reflection.

Rubber-band an algae sheet to a rock. Soak foods in garlic. Try different foods. I can get most fish to eat using rod's food or mysis. Try different approaches and different foods, try to float them and try to sink them.

Also, keep lights and traffic to a minimum around the tank... don't make him feel watched.
 
You could try many types of clown fish and there are also many types of gobys as well that would do fine in that tank.
 
NEVER keep a TANG in a 29gal cube, those things are like 1ft across and have NO swimming room for the poor guy, i think u should take him back and tell them that hes being aggressive or hes to big before he dies so that maybe some one else can buy him and put him in a bigger tank, but if you dont then i would try getting some garlic gaurd made by seaschem and soak all ur foods in that for about 5-10min and that will entice them to eat, also get some PE mysis shrimp, i find that a lot of LFS in my area feed that the most, but when i got my tang, he went into the tank and i soaked my mixture if PE mysis, brine shrimp, squid, frozen veggie meal, and sea weed in garlic for about 10min put it in the tank and he went crazy, eating EVERYTHING, and hes only been in the tank for 10min, so maybe im just lucky but u can try it, and if that doesn't work i strongly reccemmend getting rid of him and getting another fish that is more suited for a 29gal bio cube
 
and if u want to try some other fish when u give it to ur neighbor, then u can do a pair of clowns, a goby of some sort, and a royal gramma, or some sort of smaller fairy wrasse, that will give the tank a lot of color and im sure that they would like the nemos just as much as bubbles hahaha
 
Clowns would be an excellent fish for a 28 gallon. In the wild they can spend their whole life staying with one anemone in a very small area. They are almost perfectly suitable for aquarium life, plus if you get a good pair you can watch them breed and even attempt to rear the babies if you really want to get into it.

You dont need anemones in your tanks. I had two occularis clowns in my 75g reef for slightly over two years and never had an anemone. They did like to host in my frogspawn though. Be aware that anything LPS that waves in the current might be a target for them to host in. Sometimes a coral cant take it and you'll have to try to get the clowns to host somewhere else :) That can be a real pain.

Other fish good in a 28g tank would be almost any goby, although I'd stay away from the sand sifting ones in a tank that small. You'll get lots of sand stirred up and them small sand bed wont be able to support a fish very long.

Firefish... jawfish... a small goby and a pistol shrimp pair (again, you might get cloudy water although that depends on the species you get) or something like a 6 line wrasse. I've always been a fan of the 6 lines, they are easy to feed, mine took readily to pellets and flake food plus loved mysis. They can be a little aggressive though towards other similar shaped fish, but if you only plan on having one fish in your tank that wont be a problem :)
 
Other interesting small fish you could try (not all of them, obviously): tailspot blenny, possum wrasse, assessors, watchman goby, masked gobies (maybe three or four), a pair of neon gobies, small group of red-spot cardinals.
 
You need a QT, and use it, more than you need a new fish. I'd also get in the habit of researching fish before you buy them. Any source will tell you the same thing; your tank is way too small for a YT.
 
Thanks guys for all the fantastic info!

A little background history now:

I must confess, Ive had a lot of reef experience in the past. 15 years ago I had a well stocked, thriving 58 gallon reef tank. But even back then, I had absolutely no success with tangs or angels of any sort (except for one sail fin tang which eventually grew so enormous that I sold it back to the pet shop).

After selling my 58 gallon a little over ten years back, I've only minimally dabbled in the hobby with a small nano cube, and now my bigger 28 g nano cube. I've never stocked my nanos with fish (except an occasional damsel) until now, and I guess I knew better than to stick a yellow tang in there but it was just such a small one that I thought maybe it would work out.

At any rate, my neighbor's coming in an hour to get the YT to all is well :)
 
83c711df.jpg


Happy in his new home :)
 
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