Yellow tang is a picky eater

[AdamHorton]

I have a yellow tang in QT, currently on preventative hyposalinity treatment before he goes into the main tank. He was with another tang in the QT but that one died after a couple of weeks and he won't be replaced any time soon, so it's just this guy in the QT for now.

Over the past week he's been alone, he continues to wolf down the frozen brine shrimp I give him, but I'm having trouble getting him to eat much of the algae I put in there now. He used to eat all of it very quickly, but now he'll nibble at it a couple of times and leave it alone.

I've tried using garlic, I've tried two different types: "red marine algae" and "seaweed salad" green algae. What can I do to get him to eat his vegetables without starving him?

 

[jbowles]

When i had mine it seemed to love those algae wafers, the small disc shaped ones. It also loved to eat the red marine algae that i would attach to a small piece of rock.

 

[AdamHorton]

I've got a few of those things left, they are quite the popular item in my FW tank. I'm leaving the algae in there for a while and only giving him a small bit of brine shrimp, so maybe that will help. I'll try the wafers tonight.

Is it possible that he doesn't eat as much because he has nobody to compete against for food? That will definately change once he gets into the display tank because Sarge just loves that algae...

 

[cmor1701d]

Feed less potato chips (brine shrimp) and it will probably eat the nori.
Mine jsut came out of QT lat weekend. In QT it took a couple of weeks before it even touched the nori. I had to rubberband it to a rock instead of using a clip. It did like Rod's Food (what I feed the DT) and the pellet food that came with it. Now that it's the DT it found the nori clip along with everyone else. It's still hidng in a corner most of the time, but is now getting used to its new surroundings and tank mates.

 

[AdamHorton]

I lowered the algae clip last night and he ate a little more algae than before. For two nights now I've put barely any brine shrimp in the tank. He goes right for that but still doesn't seem too excited about the algae. He didn't go for the wafers either.

The bright side is that when he ends up in the display (after finishing hypo), he won't have anybody picking on him, he'll be by far the most aggressive thing in the tank until he's comfortable.

 

[cmor1701d]

Glad to see it's eating. Normally they will eat what you feed when they get hungry and that's all there is to eat. Traiining...

 

[AdamHorton]

Well he's still not eating enough vegetables to make me happy... call me strict, but he needs to grow up big and strong.

 

[AdamHorton]

Update -- I've tried a combination of several things:

Feeding less brine shrimp
Lowering the algae clip to near the bottom of the tank
Giving him the algae several hours before feeding him the brine shrimp

He's back to his old self going crazy on the algae. Also, he's been in hyposalinity for about a week and a half now, and in general he has been looking a lot healthier. He seemed to "scrape" his bottom across some of the decorations a few times and we thought we might have seen some very small white spots near his side fins (my g/f saw them, I didn't) but both of those things have vastly improved because of the hypo, and this could have also had an effect on his eating. I'm going to try giving him slightly more brine shrimp tonight to see if he still eats all of his veggies.

Thanks for the advice. I'll keep updating. I've also learned that this same sort of principle applies to human kids as well (I'm not there yet, but one day I plan to be). I can't say enough how glad I am that I started hyposalinity before we had any reason to be worried about him.

 

[cmor1701d]

If you think you saw salt grains on it then you should keep up the hypo for at least 4 weeks. I'm assuming bare bottom i the QT, siphon the bottom of the tank with every pwc to get any protomont and tomonts on the bottom.

 

[AdamHorton]

That's the plan. This Friday will be 2 weeks into the treatment.

 

[AdamHorton]

Today is four weeks on the hyposalinity treatment. This weekend I'll be bringing him back up to normal salinity, and then it won't be long until he gets into the display.

 

[cmor1701d]

Congrat!. Good husbandry. You can bring it up over the weekend and get it in the DT by Sunday!