Kole Tang's "Knifes" are out.

[Modo]

I noticed yesterday that my Kole Tang had one of his "knife" (sorry, don't know the correct term for the defensive scale on Surgeonfish) scales out for sometime. The Tang never acted aggresive towards any of it's tank mates and none of the other fish have wounds. Then this morning I noticed that his other "knife" scale was out.

Both scales are out and the Kole is not acting aggressive or odd. He is going about his daily routines and not attacking or being attacked by anyone.

Can or will he "sheath" his defensive scales again? Is this a sign of some sort of problem?

Just worried since I've never seen him act this way and need to know what to look for in case the guy is in some sort of trouble.

Thanks,
Modo

 

[Anonymous]

I've never heard of it before. I cannot imagine that it would cause a problem.

 

[wade1]

They are called "tangs" (hence the name). It could be derived from the tang maturing more (as they age, they tend to poke out a bit more).

Nothing to be concerned about though...

 

[ReeferAl]

They are called "tangs" (hence the name).quote]
I have never heard them referred to as "tangs" before. Tang, in German, means "seaweed". I have heard that as the derivation of the name "Tang" for surgeonfish, I suppose because of their dietary habits. As the Germans were pioneers in the marine aquarium hobby it certainly seems reasonable that the name could have started there.
Allen

 

[wade1]

Interesting thought, although it was likely named well prior to anything having to do with the marine hobby...

Tang ( P ) Pronunciation Key (täng)

-A sharp point, tongue, or prong.


I imagine it was marine biologists who defined it in some form a long time ago.

 

[bgoode]

I thought it was called a scalpel, hence the name surgeonfish.

 

[Anonymous]

I never heard it referred to as a tang either, but hey, it makes sense. I always called it the caudal spine. With regards to th original qustion, I used to have a kole tang, that, one day, displayed the same exyension of the "tang." It remained exposed for a couple weeks and never retracted. I doubt it was related to the maturation process as I've seen numerous koles since then at different levels of size/maturity and have not observed one with this pronounced extension. I ultimately returned the fish to the lfs as I was worried about other fish being injured when the kole would dart around the tank. Th fish remained like this for another two weeks at the lfs untl the spine retracted on it's own. Most unusual.

 

[Mouse]

I was bagging up a tang for a guy in the LFS i worked at, the lill bugger spun round flashing his tangs and slashed the whole bag in half. Awesome to see, fortunately i had my hands round the bag when he did it and caught him before he went floor surfing, just had to toss him back in the tank. Those Tangs get very sharp.

 

[Modo]

Thanks for all the advice and trivia. :wink:

I'll keep a close eye on him. Hopefully they will retract, those things look nasty. I sure wouldn't want to be on the receiving end!

 

[npaden]

I get worried whenever I have my hand in the tank with my Naso. It doesn't try to attack me but is very curious and always hungry and even eats the coraline algae when I scrape it off the glass. It has 2 scalpels on each side that are permanently exposed and cannot be retracted.

Hopefully your Kole will eventually retract the scalpels.

FWIW, Nathan

 

[Modo]

Thanks Nathan!

BTW, I'm going to be out your way on 10/8 to watch the Red Raiders duke it out with Nebraska. I haven't been back since I graduated in 99 and I hear the campus has exploded with new buildings and even TREES!

 

[npaden]

You will be impressed with the stadium renovation. It really is first class. I don't know about the trees but there are have been a lot of buildings going up for sure!

Hopefully they won't spot Nebraska 21 or 25 points before deciding to start playing like they did with TCU and Kansas. They were able to pull out wins on both of those but I doubt they will be able to get away with that anymore looking at the rest of the schedule.

That is a nice looking misbar in your avatar btw. I've seen a lot of misbars without the middle stripe connecting like the one in your avatar but not many are missing part of that first bar.

FWIW, Nathan

 

[Modo]

That's Chops.

He was raised locally from a fellow DFWMAS member here in Dallas. Andy (over on the DFWMAS boards), who raises them, has had different batches. It's odd, he said some batches will have the broken bars and then others won't. The batch that Chops came from was about half and half.

His sister has the center bar only that is broken.