How to keep Tangs alive and Healthy

[Raven09]

I love the look of Tangs but understand that they are susceptible to ICH. The last Tang I had was a Toni Tang and it brought on a bad case of ICH. I forget to put him in my HT and it cost me quite a bit of dead fish. I know, DUMB ME!!!
My general question: How does anybody keep tangs without bringing on health problems. I would love to keep tangs but don’t want the mental heartache of dead fish. Please, Who can give me some serious advice so I don’t kill anymore fish. I see tanks at aquarium stores with tangs but they don’t give much advice.

 

[Crabby48]

Start with health tangs and feed nori and foods with good nutrition. I believe in quality foods for health and color

 

[User1]

You will get a lot of different answers such as QT, isolation, etc. If you have one great, if you don't you can buy fish that others will QT for you. Lots of options so don't let either of these sway you. With that out of the way.

Quality water
Stress free environment
Quality food
Quality fish

Water goes without saying. Has to be fish ready if fish only or fish and coral ready if reef. Zero ammonia, etc. So quality water and nutrient management are important.

Stress free means little to no aggression. You don't put in 3 tangs of the same genus at once (yellow, scopas, and purple) because they will fight. Tangs have an order of progression in most cases and you don't put a large one in a smaller tank space (yellow tank 100 gallon is good for example but a blond naso in a 100 gallon is bad). Understand how this works (stock list and order) and you are 50% there.

Quality food. LRS reef frenzy is great food. Feed it a couple times a week. Nori sheets daily. Important to have natural food. Grazing space. Don't put similar fish eating similar food because they may fight. One or two is ok, but if you have nothing but tangs in your tank (didn't say you are, an example) they will all be picking on rocks, glass, etc. Back to food though. If you can grow macro algae I would strongly suggest you order the tang heaven pack from indo pacific sea farms because you can grow it and your tang will go nuts for it. My scopas and lavander had amazing color as I feed them live algae. Nothing like it but of course not everyone can do that. So LRS, nori sheets daily, and a good quality pellet.

Quality fish. Source is key. As already noted you can buy QT fish by a few people. More expensive but you know what you are getting. Other sources for yellow and purple would be BIOTA. Up to you but my point here is quality and healthy fish for your environment.

Best of luck.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Water quality and diet plays high importance. They are subject to territorial behavior and vitamin deficiency
Feed at minimum:
Spirulina brine shrimp
LRS herbivore diet
Mysis shrimp
Small plankton
Formula 2 frozen and flake
Nori seaweed basted with garlic extract

add selcon vitamins and garlic extract to the foods

 

[Hugh Mann]

Step One would be quarantine and treat for ich, even if there's no visible signs. It's a pain, but it's the closest to a guarantee you can get. That being said, lots of folks, including myself are managing ich in our displays. That can be achieved as everyone has said, pristine water quality, and the best diet you can manage.

 

[kingjoe]

I love the look of Tangs but understand that they are susceptible to ICH. The last Tang I had was a Toni Tang and it brought on a bad case of ICH. I forget to put him in my HT and it cost me quite a bit of dead fish. I know, DUMB ME!!!
My general question: How does anybody keep tangs without bringing on health problems. I would love to keep tangs but don’t want the mental heartache of dead fish. Please, Who can give me some serious advice so I don’t kill anymore fish. I see tanks at aquarium stores with tangs but they don’t give much advice.

Most tangs are highly susceptible to cryptocaryon and amyloodinium, so I highly recommend quarantine to start. A minimum of thirty days' observation to ensure that the fish are feeding properly and showing no discernible signs of disease or parasites is a must. Seventy-seven days will break the life cycle of the most stubborn ectoparasite, but around thirty days is generally seen as sufficient. Some keepers medicate during quarantine as a prophylaxis, others do not; you'd likely want to research this in some detail. But, do check into recommended parasite medicines, along with anti-bacterials, and keep some on hand. And, remember that a fish can look healthy for several weeks even as it may be very sick- another good reason to quarantine for at least thirty days. If you want to keep more than one, try taking them through quarantine together and introducing them to your display tank as a group, as this may help sort out the aggression issues that often plague this family. A 40 gallon breeder with some PVC tubing makes for a good isolation set up. Some tangs, particularly those in the acanthurus genus, are partly detritivorous, so adding them to a tank that has been established for at least six months may bring greater success. If you are not running copper or dosing other medications, you can put a piece of live rock in your quarantine tank, which your tang(s) will very much appreciate. Just remember to remove it if you need to medicate. (And don't put it back in your display tank.) Water quality is paramount, with an emphasis on high oxygenation- O2 in your tank should be at saturation levels. Along with high oxygen levels, water flow is also important, so a fair amount of current/turbulence is recommended. Some tangs, like the Achilles, are adapted to live in surge areas, so heavy flow in the tank is a prerequisite for keeping that fish. Tangs are active fish and have a demanding metabolism, so the more dissolved O2, the better. These fish can be aggressive, so they need a lot of space; check some of the tang threads here, as they have good information regarding recommended tank sizes and tankmates for various tangs. And research the adult sizes of these fish- some, like the Naso and Vlamingii grow too large for many home aquaria. Feeding may be the most important issue with tangs. These fish need seaweed, and lots of it. Plain, additive-free sushi nori is possibly the most important food you can give them- I regard it as a staple. Check the fish food section at any online reef retailer. I had a powder blue who each day got nearly a notebook page-sized sheet of folded green and brown seaweed (~75% green/25% brown) that had been treated with Zoe, Selcon, and vitamin C, and left to soak overnight in the refrigerator. He also availed himself of pretty much any other food I gave to the other fish, including carnivore preparations. This is a good thing, since we don't really know what these creatures incidentally ingest as they graze on seaweed all day on the reef. I think that a good rule for feeding marine fish in general is to make sure they get plenty of their recommended foods, but after that, the more variety, the better. So, to sum up: 30 days or more quarantine, medication if necessary, good water flow and high oxygenation, attention to potential aggression which can lead to stress and disease, proper tank size, with larger being better, and feeding, feeding, feeding. This is just my advice, garnered from keeping a variety of tangs over the years. There is substantially more information on here regarding these fish- you have days worth of reading ahead. Don't let the demands of tangs or a couple of mishaps scare you away from these fish. We've all dealt with their parasite and aggression issues, and you'll be able to work your way through it, too.

 

[Tamberav]

Healthy fish, good diet, a large UV sterilizer, low stress and avoid the more prone ich ones like powders and such.

Otherwise QT/treat everything wet.

 

[HB AL]

I feed mine Hikari cubes and they graze the rocks all day this keeps them happy, healthy and chunky.

 

[jaxteller007]

We buy fish that have been QTd already, run a UV sterilizer, and keep them healthily feed with high quality food. No ones fighting, everyone is fat and happy.
We have 2 yellow tangs, 1 lt tang, 1 vlaminigi tang, 1 flame tang and 1 blue hippo (along with various other fish, none very big though) in our 6' 180g tank.

 

[Zionas]

Yeah avoid the harder ones like the Powder Blue, Powder Brown (A. Nigricans), Clown, Achilles, Blue Hippo can be susceptible too (for a Tang) though not as bad as the others I mentioned.

 

[Squidward]

Ive always had that problem until I learned about TTM. Doing TTM to all of my fish, I've been able to keep an Ich-Free Tank. I have 11 Tangs in my 300g and I wouldn't change a thing. Ich will not magically appear if any fish is stressed. All I do now is feed and watch them grow. Never worrying about an ich breakout sooner or later. Make sure you qurantine your corals and inverts appropiately too. I'm proof it can be done. You can do it too!! I also don't like ich management either.

 

[jda]

I have a multi-part strategy. First, my tanks are well established with ocean live rock and the bottoms are teeming with microfauna and life - good luck to any ich tomont that falls off of the fish. Second, I have isolation tanks with a friendly fish to show the new fish what to eat and how to come out when I get near - because I want the microfauna, these are not bare bottom nor have any medication. Third, I keep the new tangs, and other fish, in these tanks until they are not skittish, come out to eat and eat well. They get as much time as they need and the time is variable for each fish. Some of them need to grow up a bit. When ready, they get dropped into the display.

Is this eradication? Nope. Do I have any visible disease in my tanks? Not in a few decades. I have not done this in a long time, but I once took a handful of fish covered in ich and put them into one of my isolation tanks. Within a week, the visible ich was gone off of the fish, they got less stressed and in about a month, they went into a display never to see a speck of ich again.

In the olden days, people used to tell people to wait until their tank was established to add a tricky fish. This was so that the microfauna could populate in the tank. The introduction of sterile tanks with dry rock and bare bottom has made fish disease a much harder proposition - medicated tanks can also kill the microfauna as well. The best thing that most people can do for ich is to get a pack if live rock from the Pacific or Florida and let it establish for a few months.

Once you get your method figured out, they need to be fed a lot. Well feed tanks are peaceful and happy, IME.

 

[Brian6119]

We buy fish that have been QTd already, run a UV sterilizer, and keep them healthily feed with high quality food. No ones fighting, everyone is fat and happy.
We have 2 yellow tangs, 1 lt tang, 1 vlaminigi tang, 1 flame tang and 1 blue hippo (along with various other fish, none very big though) in our 6' 180g tank.

Quick question - Did you add them all at once or smallest to largest? I’d like to have different varieties but I’m unsure on how to SUCCESSFULLY add them to keep everyone “happy.”

 

[i cant think]

I love the look of Tangs but understand that they are susceptible to ICH. The last Tang I had was a Toni Tang and it brought on a bad case of ICH. I forget to put him in my HT and it cost me quite a bit of dead fish. I know, DUMB ME!!!
My general question: How does anybody keep tangs without bringing on health problems. I would love to keep tangs but don’t want the mental heartache of dead fish. Please, Who can give me some serious advice so I don’t kill anymore fish. I see tanks at aquarium stores with tangs but they don’t give much advice.

Start with an easier species of tang. What size is your tank? Then we can give more advice. If it’s 4’ then stick to Ctenochaetus, if it’s 6’+ then more of the genera are open for possibility. I still personally wouldn’t do an Acanthurus as these are aggressive and large bodied fish. I have seen a 6-7 inch Powder Blue in a 6’x2’x2’ tank and it was in with only 3 other fish. Any more and it was an over crowded tank is what the owner said.