Yellow Tang, gettn kinda red

[Guyster]

Hello all! My name is Guy and I live in the Sacramento California area. I have been a saltwater hobbiest for about 2 years and WOW is there a LOT to learn. I have been coming to this site for several ideas and VERY helpful hints from ya'll, so for that, I thank you all very kindly!

I do have an issue that is concerning me, and my yellow tang. I had NO idea that it was a herbavore, talk about a screw up, well I have had her for about 2 months now and have been feeding the tank with brine shrimp. I also have a HUGE clown and 3 chromis and a hand full of hermits. Yesterday I was at the fish store and told them that my yellow tang is getting red around the fins and top of the head, he told me that I am a moron(which I already now know) and that he is starving, I bought some seaweed and mounted it to the bottom of the tank to flow with the blower slightly. My tang has shown NO interest, is it just because it is new to the tank and they have no idea what it is, or is he doomed at my stupidity. Any assistance is greatly appreciated.... I wish ya'll a wonderful day!!

Guyster

 

[zoalover34]

welcome to the tank! first thing you should do is get some garlic and chop it up in a bowl and add some water and soak the seaweed in it, or you could buy some liquid garlic its about 20bucks a bottle.. soak it for a few min and put it in the tank, my powder brown would't eat and i did this, after about 2 min. in the tank it was eating.. HTH
~ Jim

 

[KahluaZzZ]

a veggie clip with nori for his grazing needs, some vitamines ( Selcon )

 

[zoalover34]

my tang doesn't graze he chows down lol, i put the clip in and in about 20min its gone, i put a pretty decent sized sheet in there..

 

[KahluaZzZ]

oh and good water quality helps a lot too

 

[Joe Fish]

You could try to take the seaweed and attach it to a piece of live rock with a rubberband or something and set it in the tank. Or you could just wedge it between two rocks. Selcon would be a good idea to boost the tangs health.

What are the specs on your tank? Do you have a refugium? If you have any red/brown algae that is very thin the tang should eat that. I forget the actual name of the algae.

 

[Lorna]

The red stuff is gracillara and they love it. Most tangs don't eat the dried seaweed right away as it isn't normally found where they live......so make it look like it would in the wild....attaching it to a rock is a good idea. I also started mine onto seaweek by clipping vegetables to the clip such as spinach and dark leafy vegetables.....chard and kale. Mine even ate brocolli.....go figure....once he was eating these I replaced it with dried and he just gobbled it up. The tang and my foxface can eat a sheet of nori in about 20 minutes....