Not happy! Tang eating corals!

[renato120]

Do you have a not reef safe tang? Well I guess I do now! I collect acans, I have 30 different colors. I have a Galapagos sawtail tang for almost 3 months, doing great. He was the size of a quarter when I got Him. He is now double of the size. He never touched any corals until, Sunday afternoon, I added a filefish to eat aiptasia, He ate half of those annoying things, but He started to pick on my acans so I moved Him to my QT tank. The next day my tang was doing the same thing..... Picking on my acans and eating it. The funny thing is that, He is only picking on 5 of the 30 acans. Off course the expensive rainbow ones. What I did for now is, I placed 3 acans inside a plastic typeware with a mesh on top. The other two I moved to the other side of the tank, but He is still picking on it. Im going to wait until the 3 inside the typeware heals, and I will put it back the way it was. If He keeps doing it, I will have to remove Him
Does any one here had this problem before?

 

[CodyRVA]

Following...

 

[happyhourhero]

I have not had a tang do this but i have a blenny that enjoys sampling things around my tank. I added a nice acan frag and he immediately went over to it and spent a few hours sitting on top of it and munching. I was so mad and was considering making a small spear. I decided to just not worry about it and the acan recovered. He will still go bite it a few times every now and then but nothing bad ever came from it and the acan has great color and grows well. This same blenny will chomp on my pizza anemone. Sometimes taking visible chunks out of it. I was certain it would kill it too. Here it is a few months later and the blenny still eats on the anemone but the anemone has never retracted much and is still beautiful and even more colorful than when i got it.

The point I am making is that i think our corals have some resiliency that we do not give them credit for and we freak out when nature is just taking its course. I know that is hard when its your prized corals and they are $$$ and I know that your tank make kill the corals. I am just saying everything may still be ok.

 

[redfishbluefish]

They are listed as Reed Safe with Caution. I'd make sure I hang algae for that guy to nibble on every day and hope he prefers the algae over the corals. And actually try different algae until you find the one he prefers most. Best of luck.

 

[Pruett-nc]

I agree with @redfishbluefish . Feed it to where it wouldnt want to nip . Keep it occupied on algae not corals .

 

[renato120]

I will not take any chance! I have expensive acans. He is in my QT tank now. Not sure if I wait a couple week and put Him back in my DT, or sell it.

 

[renato120]

Really sucks! A gorgeous fish!

 

[4FordFamily]

I hate to say it but once a fish learns this behavior it's going to be borderline impossible to break. Feeding lots of nori may reduce it a bit but it is far more likely to worsen over time and I hope I am wrong but I "bet the farm" it doesn't stop

 

[renato120]

I hate to say it but once a fish learns this behavior it's going to be borderline impossible to break. Feeding lots of nori may reduce it a bit but it is far more likely to worsen over time and I hope I am wrong but I "bet the farm" it doesn't stop

I think so too! He is not going back to my DT.

 

[mfinn]

I've had a couple hippo tangs decide zoanthids were tasty.
Mine didn't just nip, they tore out whole colonies.
As previously stated, once a critter learns a new food source, they will continue to go back to it.
Even keeping extra food in the tank won't help. They continually cruise all day grazing everywhere.

 

[renato120]

I've had a couple hippo tangs decide zoanthids were tasty.
Mine didn't just nip, they tore out whole colonies.
As previously stated, once a critter learns a new food source, they will continue to go back to it.
Even keeping extra food in the tank won't help. They continually cruise all day grazing everywhere.

Thats too bad!