Difficulty keeping Bristletooth tangs

[southerntnreefer]

Best advise I can give you is to leave a side of glass, and the back, alone to build up algae. This will be a natural go-to place and you will see their mouth marks frequently. Hopefully you have a pane of glass or acrylic you can leave alone. I read this years ago in a post by Mr. Fenner. Back when I owned one I tried this with my Kole (Yellow Eye) tang and it worked great - also was interesting to watch.

You have some great suggestions here. In any case when I kept them they would eat frozen food (brine and mysis shrimp), pellets, and nori. Nori would be the green, red, and purple sheets from sources like Two Little Fishes and also green natural sheets used in Shushi. Other than that make sure you get a good fish with no mouth damage. I usually would buy my bristle tooth tanks at a LFS due to my concern with their mouths.

Best of luck.

Thats interesting knowledge, and may lead to why i lost the first 2. On my 220 the only panel i clean is the front. the sides i let build up, as they are not the best viewing angles where the tank is anyways. If i can find a good one here in a month or so, might try another.

I feed 2 to 3 sheets of nori a day as it is, one algae clip on each side of the tank. My frozen food mix, is a little bit of everything as theres so many diferent types of eaters in my tank. I wonder if that was my whole problem, scraping glass to much....and getting them too early.

 

[User1]

Thats interesting knowledge, and may lead to why i lost the first 2. On my 220 the only panel i clean is the front. the sides i let build up, as they are not the best viewing angles where the tank is anyways. If i can find a good one here in a month or so, might try another.

I feed 2 to 3 sheets of nori a day as it is, one algae clip on each side of the tank. My frozen food mix, is a little bit of everything as theres so many diferent types of eaters in my tank. I wonder if that was my whole problem, scraping glass to much....and getting them too early.

Scraping the glass is fine. I probably didn't say it correctly - my apologies. You want to leave a natural source of algae for them if you can. I always left a side pane alone, would never scrape it, and I would see my Kole Tang there scraping away. Always visible mouth marks. So sorry if it sounded like that is why I was suggesting issues. It is actually a good thing to leave a natural source and it sounds like you had one.

 

[southerntnreefer]

Scraping the glass is fine. I probably didn't say it correctly - my apologies. You want to leave a natural source of algae for them if you can. I always left a side pane alone, would never scrape it, and I would see my Kole Tang there scraping away. Always visible mouth marks. So sorry if it sounded like that is why I was suggesting issues. It is actually a good thing to leave a natural source and it sounds like you had one.

i havent tried one since the 220 has been up. I did in my 90 and then my 125 basement tank. Both likely too early.