Anyone Ever Had A White Cheek Tang?

blutang

Member
I have just discovered this fish, and it is absolutely gorgeous....I don't think I have seen a more beautiful tang. Let me know about your experiences with them.
 

c_bell

Member
I am in-love with the white cheek tang also. I went to the LSF to put an order in for it and they told me that it is an Achillies tang, which I know its not, they do go by another name though the gold-rimmed tang. I put off my search for this beautiful tang for now because I am waiting for my 90 gal. to mature. I have not seen this tang anywhere else besides online I've never seen it in a LFS. Have you seen one in person?
 

blutang

Member
I kinda figured that it would fairly difficult to keep.....thats why I haven't seen them around at the LFS before......I haven't seen them in person, but I'd sure love to.
 

beefman

Member
I went to a Store Called Aquarium Paradise and they had one of the white cheeked tangs. Looked very cool. I hope u like him im going for a Regal Tang and a yellow tang.
 

blutang

Member
I don't think I'm gonna get him, b/c my tank is too small for him:(....oh well maybe some other time!
 
The white cheek tang is also known as the A. Japonicus. The pic that the person posted above is of a Powder Brown tang, not a white cheek or gold rim. The Powder Brown or A. Nigricans is 100 times more likely to not eat and die from something, where as the white cheek (or gold rim) is a much better fish to choose. It is very hardy as far as tangs go, eats well, and is beautiful as well. Stay away from Powder Brown or A.Nigricans. You can easily tell the difference between the two by two very recognizable things. 1. The white cheek is called a white cheek because the white patch extends from it's eye all the way down to it's mouth, were as the Powder brown just has the little white slit under it's eye. 2. Also, the white cheek has a patch of red on the back of it's dorsal fin. Here is a pic of a true white cheek (gold rim) A Japonicus.
 
Blu tang, the fish pic you posted is of a White Cheek A Japonicus, not a Powder brown A Nigricans. And to Anthem. Why are you disagreeing with me. I never made a comment that could warrant you disagreeing with anything I said. Unless you yourself are a marine fish expert and have had experience with thousands of white cheek and powder brown tangs in your life like Robert Fenner, Michael Paletta, etc (and if you are, my most sincere apoligies). These "wells" of knowledge don't just write books because their good writers, they write books for people like you and I because we don't have their VAST knowledge of experience to make a statement like "white cheeks...are just as difficult to acclimate and not starve to death over time as the Nigricans." These authors and anyone else with lots of experience will obviously tell you that collecting a fish from the right local and handling it properly will always increase it's chances of living, that's not the point. The point is that based upon what the experts know and have experienced, the White Cheek tang is a very hardy fish that is long lived and a hundred times easier to keep than a Powder brown. So if you have a beef, don't come in my face, take it to the pro's, tell em you disagree with their assesment of these two tangs. I was just trying to let the poster know what a real White cheek looks like and that it DOES have a much higher chance of survival than the powder brown, and is a much hardier fish. Jollygreen
 

drew_tt

Member
calm down jollygreen, Im sure anthem meant no offense...
correct me if Im wrong but the powder brown (A. japonicus) has a smaller white spot, more prominent yellow lines and has the red stripe on the back of the dorsal, which the white-cheeked/gold-rim (A. nigricans) does not... as well, they may have meant it was hardy compared to other tangs, but it is by no means hardy... I have only seena couple of each specie live much past a month in home aquaria... they are BOTH VERY sensitive like most tangs in their genus.
Blutang, and jollygreen, both ofyour lastpictures are of the powder brown (A. japonicus)
both of these fish are easily confused... fenner has a good article on www.wetwebmedia.com about them... it should clear up any confusion.
Drew :)
 
I must agree with blutang, only because all of the fish stores in Seattle sell the fish he posted a pic of as a powder brown. Powder blues and browns are very popular in this area, so i see many of them, and they're all the same between stores. All the books I have seen as well agree that that is a brown. I'm NOT an expert, but I do run the aquatics dep. at a LFS, and I do a lot of reading on my down time.
 

derrickt

Member
Calm down, fellas, everyone has the rights to post their opinions.
back to the thread, this is a nice fish, so how do these white cheeks compare to the PBT's as far as hardiness goes? Oh, and does anyone know how much these white cheeks cost?
 

holacanthus

Member
Down here in sunny florida the powder brown are always pretty hardy! They always seems to survive longer than any of the powder blues and whitefaced tangs we get down here. But hey Just my 2 cents, not trying to get in a heated arguement. Oh and I have have xperience with hundreds not thousands of them!
 
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