Success with baby blue hippo tangs

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

What's your success rate with baby blue hippo tangs? You know, the tiny ones you see at the LFS that your SO and kiddos beg you to buy? I'm thinking the success rate with those cute little "Dorys" isn't going to be nearly as good as it will for large specimens. Thoughts?

Also, what are some tips to having better success with those little guys?

 

[QuickrdenU]

What's your success rate with baby blue hippo tangs? You know, the tiny ones you see at the LFS that your SO and kiddos beg you to buy? I'm thinking the success rate with those cute little "Dorys" isn't going to be nearly as good as it will for large specimens. Thoughts?

Also, what are some tips to having better success with those little guys?

Mine seems to be very resilient! Doubled in size over maybe 2 months? He got picked on for about a month by an Atlantic Blue Tang that is double his size. It also came down with a ton of ich, got rid of it all and is now as happy as can be. I just try to feed very heavy and a wide variety of foods.

 

[bobnicaragua]

As long as they’re eating and you don’t have established larger tangs, you should be okay.

 

[SpursFan]

They are pretty hardy so long is you have a suitable tank. They will grow quite a bit the first year.

 

[apb03]

I got mine as a baby, it is now about 4 inches long. She struggled at first to manage the current but after turning them down a bit, she did well.

 

[Sea_forest]

Picked up one early June this year, maybe an inch (give or take) and it is growing so fast. One of the pigs in our tank. Our resident tangs (purple, gem, achilles) doesn’t care about him and never once show aggression towards it.

Not a success yet but there is hope.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

This is great! Glad those little guys are doing so well! Are you feeding anything special or being careful about anything in particular?

 

[parclife]

Got mine as a dink and has grown and grown. Eats like a horse though, anything that gets fed gets eaten at speed.

 

[Sea_forest]

@Daniel@R2R for my baby blue I don’t do anything special (feeding, etc), I just let him live with the rest and whatever the rest are eating he is eating. Nori, pellets and LRS frozen.

 

[CincyReefer07]

Fingers crossed, I got a juvenile wild blue hippo tang for my 310 gallon. He finished up 6 weeks of QT with an orangeshoulder and a white tail kole tang and just went into the display over the weekend. So far he’s been great, eating, active, healthy, no fish aggression towards him from my other fish including tangs.

 

[o2manyfish]

I think people should qualify how small their blue tang was when they got it.

From my experience within the hobby trade, 'TINY' blue tangs come in about once a year and they are smaller than dime size. The fish are so young that they still have round bodies and not an elongated body.

Getting a TINY hippo to survive is a challenge. Just too much current in the tank can be overwhelming for them, they over exert and die.

I've have great success with 1" or bigger. When the fish has it's full adult shaped body. When they get to severly mature their bodies elonage alot more like a sub sandwich. But the oval shaped body they have from Small to XL.

Dave B