former model reef citizen turned xenia nipper (blue tang)

[tiburon]

I know, the horror of it all!

my lovely pacific blue, former model citizen, has turned to nipping my xenia.. I think it's because he/she isn't getting enough roughage.. I was feeding only one cube of brine or mysis a day, switching off between the two, sometimes combined with some prime reef.. so I upped it to two cubes a day.. my fish have grown a bit, so seems logic they would require more food now.. but should I get a suction-cup clip with some nori or other green food stuffs for the tang? what's best to put in the clip? coulerpa? (sp?)

edit: my 6-line and my blue tang have doubled in size over the last year.. but the flame hawk is about the same size.. funny!

[leveldrummer]

with any tang, is a very good idea (almost nessesary) to offer them nori every day-otherday.

[tiburon]

Hi - ty for the reply... is there a particular type I should get? I am just getting over a cyano issue so worried about extra fuel for that badness... also, so I put a small bit on the clip every other day? just see how much gets eaten and adjust to suit the fish?

edit: this was too funny not to share... just googling a bit on blue tangs and nori.. and found:

"I fed some nori and the blue tang ate most of the nori. The yellow tang only nibbled a little bit. The blue tang was producing gas bubbles out of its anus after ingesting so much nori. I'm also feeding pellet food infused with Kent Marine Zeocon, Zoe and Selcon to cure the blue tang of its HLLE."

Linky

[reefermike1]

not necessarily a bad thing he likes to nip at xenia, some people pray for a way to stop xenia from spreading so quickly. i agree u should feed him some algae, ive always used seaweed selects myself.

[tiburon]

Hi - funny.. I was just sort of thinking the same thing.. because that stuff is like aquatic kudzu! I have quite the large "frock" of it now also.. I have always had a lot of natually occuring algaes which the tang grazed on reguarly.. but while cleaning up the cyano I think the other algaes are also slimmer in numbers.. all my fish are pretty fat, well, full looking.. I make sure they have enough to eat.. but yes it's clearly time to suppliment the tang's diet with some additional greens. I guess I will try nori and see what happens.

I am guessing the lfs will have it? what type has the least bio impact on the tank?

[Loverotties]

Asian food store.

[Mike01z]

post a pick up of that tang, you can tell if its underfed by looking at its stomach, if it is nice and fat probably what I'd do is do the cube one day, nori next, and so on so take 1 cube out of the piciture every other day and replace with nori.

[LadyReefNeck]

Our Powder Blue started to nip at the Green Star Polyps. We have 4 tangs and a foxface in our tank, so I up'd the Nori feedings to two 3 inch strips of nori twice a day. It stopped the PB from nipping at the GSP.

We also feed pellet, mysis or flake food every other day. We don't have a cyano problem but I make sure that the skimmer is clean and dialed in to work at it's best to remove any excess that is left over after the other tank inhabitant have their fill of any food left after feedings.

I hope you have success in fattening up your tang and eliminating your cyano issue.