Purple tang doesn't eat

Manhster

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Hello all, I have a juvenile purple tang. I've had him for about 6 weeks. I bought him from a reliable fish store that quarantined him for 3 weeks treated with copper. I have never really seen him eat anything. It's been 6 weeks, so I know he must be eating something, maybe algae from rock, but I never actually see him do it. He doesn't eat flake, pellet, nori clip, mysis shrimp. He seems perfectly healthy, other than a sunken belly. He swims fine, although seems kind of clumsy, bumping into rocks sometimes. He doesn't have any vsible signs of disease. I had a foxface before him, and added a white tailed bristletooth at the same time as the purple tang. They all get along fine, no aggression. Any suggestions on how to get the tang to eat what I'm feeding?
 

Conovan

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cut a very thin, short, single strip of nori for your clip so it looks very unthreatening and waves a little more naturally. its how I got my baby yellow tang to start eating. Once it started eating now it will eat anything I throw in there.
 

Jay Hemdal

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Can you post a picture of it? Very often, when we hear, "I haven't seen it eat, but it must be eating something" the reality is that it isn't actually eating - fish can go a surprisingly long time without food (but six weeks is too long for a small tang).

It definitely should NOT be bumping into rocks, at all, ever. Can you test to see if its vision is damaged? Do this by making a sudden movement outside of the tank and see if the fish reacts. If it doesn't react to movement, then it may have a vision issue.

Jay
 
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