yellow tang vs. yellow whip

[lsplitte]

I can't believe what I saw, but one of my yellow tangs is nipping at my gorgonian. I don't know if the fish is trying to feed off of the polyps or what, but it's starting to annoy me because the polyps will not stay out to feed. What's more aggravating is my sail fin tang is nipping also on a purple gorgonian.

Is this supposed to happen and how do you stop it?

 

[Anonymous]

I can't believe what I saw, but one of my yellow tangs is nipping at my gorgonian. I don't know if the fish is trying to feed off of the polyps or what, but it's starting to annoy me because the polyps will not stay out to feed. What's more aggravating is my sail fin tang is nipping also on a purple gorgonian.

Is this supposed to happen and how do you stop it?

Unfortunately "supposed to" doesn't enter into the equation much when dealing with living organisms. A tang that nips at a coral I would normally consider an anomoly, however you have two doing it.
Sounds to me like their diet is lacking in either a quantitative or qualitative sense, or both.

Jim

 

[Anonymous]

You could try keeping some nori or sheets of algae in the tank for your tangs to have some "approved" grazing material. They might just be hungry.

I have a coral eating hippo tang. He eats LPS corals with gusto, and nothing I do will stop him, so I just can't keep those corals with him. I have noticed however, that if don't keep up with frequent feeding, he starts going after the leathers and gorgonians. If I can keep him very full, he stops picking.

 

[Anonymous]

That must be one fat, happy hippo, Laura!

Short of taking the gorgs out, I think Laura has stated the one possible solution.