Kole Tang

Huskymaniac · May 18, 2018

I thought they were supposed to be reef safe. This little monster just decided to start eating my sea fans and my clam. It will only get worse I presume?

Tahoe61 · May 18, 2018

Every fish is different.

Yes the behavior is likely to continue. I have never heard of them bothering clams though, that is weird.

Carterfish · May 19, 2018

That is strange. Could be the region they got the fish from. Kole tangs are usually harmless. Are you sure he wasn’t just picking the algae off of them.

DancingShark · May 19, 2018

Second the algea thing. I have one and he attacks algea religiously all day long.

ca1ore · May 19, 2018

Or maybe you're not feeding it enough .... or the right things. Bristle tangs are detritivores more than they are herbivores. Though some will take nori off a clip, many will not, preferring to scrape the rocks for slime algae. They almost never eat hair alage. Mine spends most of its day scraping the rocks and periodically follows the other tangs around hoping for a 'treat'.

Huskymaniac · May 19, 2018

Was feeding 3 times a day lrs reef frenzy. Have nori and algea waffers. Fish is a terror. Is there a way to humanly poison it without killing my tank? Never seen anything like this before.

eatbreakfast · May 19, 2018

They are almost usually reef safe, however, on rare occasions there are rogue individuals.

SallyWho · May 20, 2018

Huskymaniac said:
Was feeding 3 times a day lrs reef frenzy. Have nori and algea waffers. Fish is a terror. Is there a way to humanly poison it without killing my tank? Never seen anything like this before.

Nah, don't poison it. Trap or hook it out and take it to your LFS, or sell it to someone with a FOWLR. Can you move it to another tank or sump him in the meantime?

User1 · May 20, 2018

ca1ore said:
Or maybe you're not feeding it enough .... or the right things. Bristle tangs are detritivores more than they are herbivores. Though some will take nori off a clip, many will not, preferring to scrape the rocks for slime algae. They almost never eat hair alage. Mine spends most of its day scraping the rocks and periodically follows the other tangs around hoping for a 'treat'.

One of my favorite tangs for this reason. Best tip / trick for this Tang is to leave a pane of glass alone to build up diatoms and other algae so it has a known source of constant food to graze on. I built a corner area up so I really couldn't reach it for this purpose. Also I've never personally had a Kole that acted like this. All it did is what most others mentioned. Swam around all day scrapping the glass and rocks. Few LPS (Hammers) it would touch the base but never head area.