a question asked a million times.....

[NoobReeefer]

i got a 2.5-3" naso tang and a 2" square tail bristle tooth tang in qt right now. its been about a week, 4 days in therapeutic copper. The bristle tooth eats anything you throw in the tank, the naso only picks at the glass, heater, pvc fittings ect. He does go after food pretty aggressively but very rarely does he eat it, sometimes hell grab it and spit it out. i also have some nori on a little pvc fitting and ive caught him nipping at it here and there but either way he's getting skinny i dunno what to do at this point.
ive tried mysis, flakes, pellets, lrf fish frenzy, a home made concoction of tilapia, scallops, shrimp and squid soaked in garlic and selcon then frozen.
im going to get some live blackworms and live brine today if the lfs has any.
the craziest thing is he's active and not shy at all, obviously im not watching him 24/7 so he could be eating an im just not seeing it. there is never any left over food in the tank after an hour of feeding but im almost certain its the bristle tooth eating it all.
any advise...?

oh i almost forgot, all the food except the flakes have been soaked in GC with focus, garlic and selcon. maybe i should skip out on that step for now and see if hell eat non medicated food...?

 

[Bob Weigant]

Couldn’t hurt to try non medicated food

 

[Sashaka]

It certainly lo

i got a 2.5-3" naso tang and a 2" square tail bristle tooth tang in qt right now. its been about a week, 4 days in therapeutic copper. The bristle tooth eats anything you throw in the tank, the naso only picks at the glass, heater, pvc fittings ect. He does go after food pretty aggressively but very rarely does he eat it, sometimes hell grab it and spit it out. i also have some nori on a little pvc fitting and ive caught him nipping at it here and there but either way he's getting skinny i dunno what to do at this point.
ive tried mysis, flakes, pellets, lrf fish frenzy, a home made concoction of tilapia, scallops, shrimp and squid soaked in garlic and selcon then frozen.
im going to get some live blackworms and live brine today if the lfs has any.
the craziest thing is he's active and not shy at all, obviously im not watching him 24/7 so he could be eating an im just not seeing it. there is never any left over food in the tank after an hour of feeding but im almost certain its the bristle tooth eating it all.
any advise...?

oh i almost forgot, all the food except the flakes have been soaked in GC with focus, garlic and selcon. maybe i should skip out on that step for now and see if hell eat non medicated food...?

It certainly looks like you've been offering a variety of foods. I would stop the medicated food and pick it back up later if necessary. It's more important that the tang is eating because copper is a long treatment plan. The fact that the tang is picking at the PVC pipe, etc., indicates that it's still willing to eat. If it stops eating completely, it's VERY hard to encourage it to eat again. The tang right now is probably trying to find the algae it's used to eating. I think what is happening in copper treatment tanks is the nori ends up getting a coppery taste that the tangs don't like. To combat this I feed smaller portions and replace any uneaten with fresh nori more often. Supermarket unseasoned Nori is food grade, cheaper than LFS Nori, and my tangs all learn to eat it.

White and black worms are a good next choice I think. You could try some live gut loaded brine shrimp too. My tangs pick at clam as well. I get a dozen from the supermarket, freeze them live, and then just half shell them when I'm ready to serve. My butterflies eat the claim better than most tangs, but it depends on the tang. Still, as an algae eater try getting some live algae such as what Indo Pacific Sea Farms sells. They have a mixed variety specific for tangs. I haven't tried it, but I've heard good things about them. They sell both live for the refugium and packaged for direct feeding: https://www.ipsf.com/tangheaven.html.

Hope you find a food it will eat soon. Good luck!

 

[HotRocks]

You can try non medicated food.

Naso's are tough to get eating most of the time. I would try some live brine or blackworms.

 

[NoobReeefer]

will they eat chaeto or colurpa? i ahem some of that in its own QT right now

 

[NoobReeefer]

LFS didn't have any live brine or black worms but i got some frozen blood worms and the naso is gobbling em up.....i guess thats better than nothing for now

 

[HotRocks]

LFS didn't have any live brine or black worms but i got some frozen blood worms and the naso is gobbling em up.....i guess thats better than nothing for now

That's a good thing!

 

[ca1ore]

Assuming you mean the literatus/elegans, a tougher fish that most people appreciate particularly when small. They often refuse to eat and gradually waste away. Best to get any fish eating before any medications. In the first few days, malnutrition is a bigger and more common problem than disease (though there are some exceptions). Getting them to eat anything is a good start. Nori is worth trying.

 

[NoobReeefer]

So after a little trial and error I think he just don’t like either the garlic or selcon cause I soaked more blood worms in that and he spit the first 2 out then ignored em for a minute tryed em again and spit em out, while in the mean time the bristle tooth was going to town on em. Tryed regular blood worms again like an hour later and the naso tore em up again.
On a side note I’ve never had a fish eat so much of anything like this bristle tooth does. He’s gonna be a good grazer once he goes in the DT.