Powder blue feeding

[LA-Lawman]

I snagged this guy from a friend who was gonna let him waste away. he recovered from ich fine. he is eating brine and mysis (saoked in selcon and Zoe) he is very active but thin...

i put some sea veggies in on a clip and he will not go near them. should i leave them in and see what happens or not. am I too late.....

I have only had him 2weeks .... he looks alot better then he did....

 

[EmilyB]

Get him on some OSI spirulina flake asap and feed him three times a day if he will consume it. Rub a garlic clove on some nori, much cheaper than the store bought algae (garlic is an attractant as well ). Rubber band it to a piece of PVC or something so it doesn't flap around. You could also try feeding some sinking spirulina wafers, or the stick on OSI tabs. Keep up with the water quality (I hope you have a big tank) while you are plumping him up. Good luck with a hard task.

 

[Vixyswillie]

Ditto the nori comment. I buy mine in large quantity here: http://store.yahoo.com/tayabas/nfsp.html

I cut the original sheets in half, roll up the half-sheet, and rubber band it to a small rock each morning. Works like a charm and my PBT loves it.

Good luck!

 

[LA-Lawman]

Welp,

i rolled up a piece of nori (ocean nutrition) and crammed it under a rock.... a few minutes later the vtang was nipping at it....

should i leave it to graze?....

my buddy fattened his up with blood worms... (hikari soaked in zoe and zoecon)

do u think i should give it a whirl....

 

[Anonymous]

I will suggest using fresh romaine lettuce, as well. With the garlic, some fish love it, some fish HATE it, just FYI. The LBAOP uses romaine to basically free feed. We also use bloodworms soaked in Selcon for the new/picky butterflies, and, unless they're in a bad way (like the animals confiscated by Fish & Game) they always snap 'em up. I've never seen the tangs offered bloodworms, but that's not to say it won't help stimulate feeding for them.

Very often for fish (much like w/horses) seeing others going nuts over foods will help to stimulate them. What you want to avoid when offering free feeds is pollution, so be sure to do copious water changes, as much as possible anyway.

Now, if the fish is eating but doesn't gain weight, this is a sign of cyanide exposure, again, just FYI. As I recollect via my research online it appears to destroy the gut lining in fish so exposed, and there is at this point little we can do to alleviate the problem.

 

[Anonymous]

OH yeah! If you're LAPD, then you know the outcome of the football game last week against L.A. County Fire Dept.'s "L.A. Heat", don't ya? Damn...4 points!!! That's it! My brother-in-law is L.A.County Fire, and he plays, it's lots of fun, too.

 

[Telochupoto]

Law man,
Tangs are veggie eaters, try to keep then and rear them as close to nature as possible. In my opinion, feeding them the blood worms and such won't do it much good besides keeping him alive a lil longer. He needs the nutrition that basically was designed for him [veggies], be it by veggie based pellets, lettuce on clips, Julian Sprung products, whatever. In my experience making a herbivour fish eat flesh is a bad idea... a friend of mine had a tang with an angel, he threw in the pellets and lettuce for the tang, and the worms and brine shrimps for the angel... but since the shrimps and worms were easier to feed [just dump'em] he started to feed the tang the same thing... he took it and liked it, and a few weeks later started to nip corals and such. Its just my 2 Cents, but when you are dealing with $40 and up corals, you don't want to risk it.

 

[Anonymous]

We can't state categorically that all tangs are exclusively vegetarian, they do take meaty foods, some tangs take more than others (Hippocampus comes to mind here). The real issue is variety, which is true of ALL animals, yes? Your friend stopped offering that variety, but it was to the detriment of the corals (the tang could also have been after the small arthropods living on/around the corals as well). Ultimately the tang will suffer if not supplied a good variety of foods from which to make its own choices.

I forgot to mention that if you can get a hold of macroalgae you should put some in for him as well.

 

[LA-Lawman]

I think this tang may have been exposed to cyanide. he is Ich Free and eating.. which is a good sign i think....

I have a beefy skimmer.. an AquaC EV180 on a 90g.... I plan a water change for tonight... 10g

He has a round belly now.. so lets see if he continues to graze... I might skip a tank feeding so i can watch him graze...my hippo tang is going nuts for the nori. i think he passed the info on to the PB.

thanks.. I will keep ya posted

SM - it is not often that the county guys beat the city folk... We will win big next time....

thanks again

 

[Anonymous]

Aaahh...but you see, my friend, the fire department was always beating LAPD until 3 years ago. Now, for some reason, they just can't seem to get their rhythm (way too much like The CHARGERS, eh?). So, LAPD beat L.A.County Fire by 4. :x :lol:

As for the fish, keep feeding all of them the noori, it's really good for them. Once you get the P.B.Tang fattened, or at least on his way, you should have an easier time of it. It's just getting over that hump. How long has the fish been stateside (that you know of)?

 

[LA-Lawman]

been around for about a month or so....

so. i guess it is crunch time for the tang. live or go see the reef gods....

hopefully he will pull thru.

 

[Anonymous]

Yep, you're in that time frame where you'll be able to sort out fairly quickly what the truth of the matter is. If he's just thin and needs the boost, you'll see the results soon enough. If he's been exposed to cyanide, he may eat, but won't be able to utilize the feed.

May the Gods be with him, eh?

 

[Anonymous]

fwiw:

i would definitely advise against feeding romaine lettuce to any tang. it has almost no nutritional value whatsoever,and is mostly water

tangs will usually devour it, and look really fat for a short period of time-but this is highly illusiory, and leads the aquarist to believe that the tang is doing well, when in fact, it's not getting anything of any real food value at all, rather lots of unusable fiber/roughage, and is most likely being setup for a nice case of hlle

if you want to feed a green leafy 'terrestrial' vegetable, spinach is far superior, has a much higher vitamin c level, as well

just my $0.02

p.s.-romaine has little nutritional value for people, too :wink:

 

[Expos Forever]

I first heard this tip from Emily B. It's the basic rubber-banded feeding rock with Nori. You put mysis,plankton or whatever your tang will eat and roll it tightly in the nori,then rubber band it. I had fed nori previously (on a clip) but had to remove it by day's end so as to avoid spoilage. Now, every last scrap gets eaten without fail. The fact that the other fish get so excited may help trigger his feeding response. And it's hilarious to see the other fish patiently waiting for my YT to do his work and "set more morsels free" from the rock. Highly recommended. (Thanks Em )

 

[Anonymous]

I relay the information about the romaine because it's what is used at the LBAOP for free feeding our tangs, a public aquarium which is neither in the business of selling fish nor killing them. Believe me, I was surprised, but it is what is used, quite copiously, restaurant grade only (as are all the foods fed to the animals). In my opinion the fact that this is a public aquarium greatly enhances the veracity of their practices.

This place is run by folks who actually have degrees, as well as sporting its own lab. We also house many, many hundreds (if not thousands--let's just say there are more than I can count) of tangs, including the fattest Powder Blues I've ever laid eyes on. Yes, terrestrial plants turn what already are into even greater poop machines, but the point is to keep them happy and FAT, yes?

Therefore, again, in my own HONEST opinion, the information garnered from such an establishment is to be highly regarded, and is not as questionable as other sources.

As for the nutritional content of romaine for humans, I do also happen to have a registered dietitian in the house (my own mother--who sports a Master's in her area of expertise) who disagrees with the assessment that romaine lacks nutritional value--it qualifies as a green, leafy vegetable.

 

[LA-Lawman]

Hi All,

The Nori did the trick. he is looking much better.. he is grazing all day.

here is a pict

thanks a bunch..

the other guys are eating too.