Just introduced a Powder Blue Tang to my 75 gal

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born2chill

Aquarium Advice Activist
Joined
Jan 3, 2005
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Location
New York
I think I might have made somewhat of an impulse buy at my LFS today. They had Powder Blue Tangs on sale for $34.99 and just got a shipment of them when I got to my lfs. I thought this was a great deal since the same fish costs $60 at liveaquaria plus shipping.

My tank has cycled and hs been running over a month now. I have a 75 gal bowfront with 55 lbs of lr, 60 lbs live sand, fluval 404 filter, and aquac remora pro skimmer. My ph is 8.2, amm is 0 nitrite is 0 and nitrates 10 ppm. I have 2 peps, 10 scarlet reef hermits, and 6 mex. turbos that I introduced a week and a half ago. I now also have the powder blue tang and 2 small occeleris clowns I just bought today at the lfs.

I know that the powder blues aren't the hardiest fish to start a tank with so I was wondering what some people's expreiences were with them. What foods have you had the best luck with? I was also interested in getting a yellow tang, but I now know that powder blues can be very aggressive towards them? Is a yellow tang out of the question? What other tank mates would you recommend in my tank? TIA

BTW the powder blue seems to love it in my tank and is swimming around nicely while the clowns still seem to be getting adjusted to their new surroundings.
 
Powder blues are one of the more aggressive tangs. The regal blues are the ones that are so susceptible to the ich, etc. Supposedly you can have more than one tang as long as they are not the same coloration. However you do need to check at liveaquaria or some other source about the tank size requirements for a powder blue. And also how big they could get.
 
It is a good price. However, I fear you may have introduced too many fish too soon for such a young system. Livestock needs to be added very slowly at first to give the biological fitration time to catch up with the new bioload. Test your water daily and have enough aged SW on hand to do a water change if needed. the powder blue tang can be a difficult fish to keep. They are very prone to parasites and bacterial infections, ick magnets. The stress caused by the potential change in water parameters can cause an ick outbreak in the new tang. Watch for any signs of stress. As for feeding...tangs are grazers. You should provide it with nori or seaweed sheets of algea for it to pick at. Also feed a high quality meaty food and soak it in a product like garlicguard by Seachem. Garlic boosts the immune system and stimulate appitite. Keep us posted...Lando
 
Please reference my PBT profile in the profiles forum for more detailed info but here are the basics that I have used to keep mine living a healthy life for the last 4 years.

I feed my PBT a steady dite of Nori. Nori is dried seaweed. You can use the stuff you get at the LFS or you can get, if you can find it, dried nori at your local grocery store if it has a section for aisan cooking. If not maybe you can find a health food store that stocks it. I get mine from an online health website.

In additon to the nori I feed it a mix of meaty foods once or twice a week that I have made up. You can use retail frozen fish foods or make your own (search "blender mush").

Tangs in general like their swimming space and the PBT is no exception. Make sure there is plenty of open water for the tang to swim in. A 75 in all honesty is about the absolute minimum I would put a PBT in for both swimming room and agression. I would not consiter getting another tang for the tank nor would I consiter a fish of simular body shape or coloration.
 
Great info from all. I will add this. You should really consider using a QT tank to hold are your new tank additions for a few weeks. You keep them in the qt to make sure they don't have any problems with parasites or sickness. You don't want to have to treat for these kind of problems.

Cool fish. :wink:
 
Thanks for all of the advice. I wanted to add only 1 fish at this time, but some people at the lfs along with some of the lfs employees assured me that I would be ok adding the 3 fish at this time. I guess I should have trusted my instincts. I will monitor my water closely and look for any stress-related problems in any of the fish.

Is nori the same thing as the dried algae sheets sold online like:

http://www.bigalsonline.com/catalog/product.xml?product_id=22695;category_id=1781;pcid1=2911;pcid2=

[/url]
 
It's basically the same only nori is the seaweed used to make sushi rollups in asian restaurants. The stuff in the lfs is for fish and probably not fit for human consumption(like anyone might eat it, yuk!). You can get nori on ebay and just about anywhere on the web. And don't forget the garlic.
 
Update on my powder blue. He has been in my tank for a week now and is doing very well. He is a pig and goes nuts whenever I put food in the tank. I have fed him an alternating diet of marine flakes, krill pellets, fozen mysis and frozen brine all soaked in a vitamin enhanced garlic liquid called Garlic Elixer. I just ordered some algae sheets and Spirulina flakes a few days ago and will immediately start feeding him the algae to keep him healthy. I lost my small clown though because he swam into the jet stream of my MJ1200 and got bounced into my LR. He got very stressed and died within 15 minutes of the trauma. My other O. Clown, on the other hand, is doing great. At first he would only swim in the very back corner of the tank and would not really come out. Now he looks to have gotten used to his surroundings and swims around quite a bit. He is also eating well and doesn't seem to be too bothered by his substantially larger tank mate.

I am getting ready to do my first water change since my fish have been added and will be doing a 10 gal change in a day or two so now I'm starting to think about future tankmate possibilities.

From reading Fenner's book, I didn't get the impression that mixing a PBT with a Yellow tang is out of the question. I'm not too sure about introducing a YT though since I hear that the two tangs may fight.

So if I can't add a yellow tang, I was thinking about adding either a Heniochus or an Auriga Butterfly as my last big fish. As for smaller fish, I was thinking about a coral beauty, royal gramma, 2x banggai Cardinal, and either another O. clown or a sixline wrasse.

Would I be overcrowding my tank with this list?
 
i have an auriga butterfly and a PBT. The auriga was in the tank first and when i introduced it, the auriga harrassed the PBT for 2 days straight. It actually scratched him with it's top fins (they are sharp!). After the PBT got acclimated, it started harrassing the aruiga. It now rules the tank. Looking back, i would not have these 2 fish in the same tank. I am lucky that i introduced the PBT last.....if you add the auriga after the PBT, i imagine it will harrass it to death (JMO). It can be NASTY!

They are both beautiful fish, I have a 125 gallon and got lucky, again i would not have these 2 in the same tank again. I also have a naso that is indifferent to the PBT and visa versa. BTW.......I know you are going to, but add the nori ASAP, as tangs are herbivores. Mine eats anything, but don't over do the meaty diet.

img_338414_0_160426efa2cdd248f07df8648cfebe96.jpg


Jim
 
electrikat said:
It's basically the same only nori is the seaweed used to make sushi rollups in asian restaurants. The stuff in the lfs is for fish and probably not fit for human consumption(like anyone might eat it, yuk!). You can get nori on ebay and just about anywhere on the web. And don't forget the garlic.

I'm pretty sure you can eat it, my girlfriend loves snacking on it for some reason (she's weird).

I've never heard about the garlic stuff before, thanks for that I will check it out.
 
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