Proper diet for tangs?

[nbd13]

Hey guys wondering if there is more i should feed my tang. right now he (chevron) eats meaty foods (my own mix) 2 times a day and then i feed nori on a clip between the chevron, foxface lo, and Centropyge interruptus angel they go through it rather quick.

should i try feeding anything else? i think i might have had a conversation with Dave B. or Chuck about romane lettuce? is there anything good in that?

any other ideas? i plan on getting a hippo tang and a black tang as soon as my fish issues settle down.

anyway so looking for ideas out there.

thanks

Nick

[The man]

Stay away from freshwater based veggies. Feed them live chaeto, or gracilaria if you want something good for them.
Almost any macro will do, But do not feed any type of caulerpa. Too many toxins in it.
One more thing try to get them on pellets with spirolina and algaes in it. Soak it in selcon once and a while. Ya might need garlic to entice them to the pellets. Feed them nori or live macros as much as you can, But usually once every 3 days is standard. Thats if you are getting them to eat foods with algaes.
I set up a seperate 10 gallon macro tank i dump my skimmate into and grow macro for my tangs.

[barky]

Nick In one of my tanks I have a chevron and a clown tang I feed them flake food brine shrimp and daily sea veggies soaked in selcon they tear that up, also give them cyclop-eeze. in my other tank I have a yellow, purple tang and they like all of the above except for the sea veggies they tend to stay away from that for some reason. cyclop-eeze is a favorite.

[o2manyfish]

Nick,

My FO tank has tangs in it - some for over 10 years now. They get only pellet and some romaine lettuce a couple of times a month.

Fish are chubby (a theme in my house) and seem happy and healthy.

My tangs outside don't get fed anything at all.

The tangs inside (Chevron, Purple, Yellow and Yellow Belly) are forced to feed primarily off the tank. Only in the past month have I started adding supplemental food for all the lil blennies and gobies.

In the past I never fed my reef tank. I always keep Chevrons in my reef. The Chevrons stay fat, have great color, and it takes them years to mature and become less pretty (just my opinion). At which point I swap them for Tiny Chevys.

Dave B

[nbd13]

Thanks Dave!

Nick

[moonpod]

My experience: yes they are grazers by and large, but they by and large also appreciate meaty foods. So I regularly feed mysis and formula type foods. Also remember that some (ie the Nasos and Hippo/blue/regal tangs) are also significant planktinovores in nature. For convenience I also make sure they'll eat a flake and/or pellet (I mix in formula 2 flake and spectrum pelluts). cyclopseeze is like crack for fish. I dunno it matters, but the fish like it.

As for what "green" to supplement. Gracilleria is more "natural", but can be difficult to get at times, and for sure is a pain to grow. It doesn't grow well for me anyways. The other macros--chaeto some tangs will eat and some won't. Caulerpa, well as a generality it will be eaten, but since we're all afraid of crashes, I personally don't use it in my systems. Everything else (blue and red) for sure tangs will mow down, but grow too slow to be useful.

For YEARS, aquarist kept tangs healthy and happy on "land veggies". ie romaine and broccoli heads. I think it's still fine for 'em, but IME tends to be messy, so I don't use it. Yes gracilleria is messy too, but for whatever reason, I don't mind as much.

Nori is fine (processed red algae), but tends to be messy as well. Sea veggies BTW, is nori upcharged for being "for fish".

My two cents.

[nbd13]

thanks Chuck, very informative.

i will try and get some Sea Veggies when i go to the LFS tomorrow.

Nick