Rubber bands not fish safe!

austibella

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In my 30+ years of keeping marine fish, what happened yesterday has never occurred. I look at my 120 reef last night after feeding and my 14 y o purple tang has a rubber band around his entire body. I use a rubber band to secure seaweed to a small rock on a string for my tangs. Seldomly, I’ve noticed that they’ve pulled the rubber band off the rock, and left it in the tank out of difficulty getting to it among rocks. I remember my big blue tang passing a rubber band from anal cavity a long time ago, but nothing like this! I’m thinking of using the clip I have, but they pull the whole piece of seaweed off of it and it makes a mess. Anyways, I was able to net him and as I attempted to remove it, it broke, which I think would have happened eventually, but I didn’t want to take chances. It didn’t look good.

FCF2D5CE-0C7F-4071-87CA-8D9BD175D7EB.jpeg E1B948A1-0B80-4A4F-A796-13E2E33105CC.jpeg 8E954A60-0463-4627-AD87-96A66B9B72B6.jpeg
Hope he is o.k never seen that before
 
OP
OP
Rjramos

Rjramos

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New Fall Fish Fashion? Our pet's get into the oddest situations... on walks, my dog manages to get himself tangled in his leash, vines, branches without much effort, but he's sort of a Murphy's law dog, anything can happen with him!

Not sure if you feed dry Nori or live seaweed. I fold my Nori several times or roll it up into a tube and clip it in halfway across the length and it prevents a good deal of ripping from the aggressive eaters.
I have used a clip before but my big blue tang rips the whole 4x4 tightly rolled sheet out of the clip. So I’ve been rubber banding it to a rock hanging on thick fishing string, like a piñata. Which has worked great for years. The rubber band stays on the rock most of the time, with a little leftover under it they can’t get to. Then I remove the whole thing. On occasion they have pulled the rubber band off and I haven’t been able to find it within the tank.
 

Zartan

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In my 30+ years of keeping marine fish, what happened yesterday has never occurred. I look at my 120 reef last night after feeding and my 14 y o purple tang has a rubber band around his entire body. I use a rubber band to secure seaweed to a small rock on a string for my tangs. Seldomly, I’ve noticed that they’ve pulled the rubber band off the rock, and left it in the tank out of difficulty getting to it among rocks. I remember my big blue tang passing a rubber band from anal cavity a long time ago, but nothing like this! I’m thinking of using the clip I have, but they pull the whole piece of seaweed off of it and it makes a mess. Anyways, I was able to net him and as I attempted to remove it, it broke, which I think would have happened eventually, but I didn’t want to take chances. It didn’t look good.

FCF2D5CE-0C7F-4071-87CA-8D9BD175D7EB.jpeg E1B948A1-0B80-4A4F-A796-13E2E33105CC.jpeg 8E954A60-0463-4627-AD87-96A66B9B72B6.jpeg
I’ve seen decorator crabs never a decorator tang!!! Lol
 

xxkenny90xx

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So rubber bands aren't reef safe? Wow, weird. Good to know! Fwiw I use this for seaweed, works great!
20201105_172146.jpg
 

Lovefish77

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Strange as he seems enjoying the ride . From what I have seen fish can shake their body vigorously if they want to shed off something like that ...interesting behavior!!
My sailfish tang, biggest fish in my tank and the most gluttonous that he has to try and take a bite of everything that goes into the tank (food, my fingers, forearm, whatever...). A couple of months back I just glued sometimes with super glue and he took a large bite from that super glue blob that half of his mouth was glued. I thought the poor guy would die. But in 2 days he was able to shed it off maybe with oils that they release off their skins. Just wanted to share.
 

Bfragale

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One is a million... or billion... glad he’s ok, thanks for sharing! Something we will probably only see once in a lifetime lol. “Rubber bands not reef safe” lol.
 

Ferrell

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Had a similar thing happen to my yellow tang back in the 80s. I used to feed him Romaine lettuce tied to a pvc fitting with a rubber band. His was wrapped around his nose and mouth.
I still use rubber bands and a feeding rock but nori now
 

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