Tomini tang is on a hunger strike

[afk-47]

I picked up 2 clowns, royal gramma, and a tomini tang last week from my LFS. The clowns in 1 10gal QT and the gramma and tomini in another 10gal. Both tanks are fully cycled with biospear and dr.Tim one and only. (some kind of cocktail) with a 4" pvc elbow. The clowns have been awesome since day one, swimming around, eating, doing clown stuff. The gramma took a day or two to start eating and free swim all the time. The tomini tang has been pretty rough.

Friday- Hiding
Sat-Hiding
Sun- Hiding. Started to freak out so dose both tanks with ParaPro. 1-2 hour after the dose, started to see him come out and hovering at the bottom more and more
Mon- Hiding. Added black construction paper on the sides and 3/4 of the front. Starting him swimming around a lot
Tues- Would do a few laps, hide for a bit and come back out.
Wed- Hiding
Thurs- Moved the gramma to clown tank. still hiding
Friday- Hiding

I have only seen him take a bit or two of mysis. I have tried PE mysis, another brand, seaweed extreme pellets, Hikari marine -s- with selcon, nori (seems to take a few bites here and there) live blackworms, freeze-dried krill/mysis in selcon. Seems like most people have issues with tomini eating and hiding a lot but I'm starting to get a bit worried that he's not eating. He does not have any spots on him. No pinched stomach. I was thinking of doing a freshwater dip but not sure if that would stress him out more than he is. Any input would be grateful.

 

[Nigel35]

What where they feeding him at the LFS? Seems like your doing all the right things, but 2 weeks with little to no eating is a problem. How about heavy or labored breathing? What are your parameters? What about the salinity difference in the tanks (from LFS to quarantine)? Temperature etc. ?

 

[afk-47]

Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 10
temp 77.8
sal: 1.025

The LFS only had him for 2 days. I was so excited that I didn't even ask what they were feeding him if anything. He was in the backroom in a dark tank. Breathing does not seem heavy. LFS salinity was 1.016 so dripped acclimated for 2 hours before putting him in his tank. I can't wait to get him into the 75gal DT but still 3-6 weeks ago. I still need to finish the build and also found out last Saturday, that I will be moving at the end of the month. It is hard to tell if he eating when left alone. I have been trying to use sinking feed to make it a bit easier to see if anything is missing. In the last 48 hours, he has picked the left front corner as his "safe place". He seems to like corners for some reason.

 

[afk-47]

I was reading a bunch of posts on many forums. Someone, I believe here, a few years ago suggested getting some schooling fish to an alert system. As long as the school was swimming there are no predators out lurking. This would allow the tang to put down his guard. I ended up to getting two pajama cardinals this morning. Guess who decided to show up for dinner today!! He ended up getting some good chow down too. Then my 5-year-old ran to the front of the tank full speed ahead and scared the crap out of him. He did come out for several laps about an hour later.

 

[Zionas]

Nice! Hope he does well for you.

Tominis can be shy for Tangs.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

My Tomini is the shyest (sp?) fish in my 150g. She tends to hide when I’m near the tank and come out as soon as she thinks I’m not looking at her anymore.
Good thought on the cardinals!! I hope she lives a long happy life with you.

 

[DrZoidburg]

I had got one that was similar recently. Tangs are really timid but when they start eating the don't have a problem after. I got mine going with calanus broad cast. Just feed tank and get away their so shy at first. Move slow, and maybe their afraid or stressed out. Then he/she was going after brine shrimp I cooked up for other picky fish, now the tomini is eating nori and just about everything. Best of luck to you.