Crazy Hippo Tang

[vinnyl]

My Hippo started to pick on some corals….specially my Xenia. He killed most of it already!!

Has anyone had this problem before? If so, Is there something I can do?? (besides killing the fish..LOL)
Tks
Vinny

 

[farslayer]

I've only heard of this behavior when the tang is not being properly fed. What size tank, what do you feed, etc?

 

[peef]

Yeah, I agree tangs are grazers. If you do not have some plant life for him to eat he will find the next best thing. Get some calurpa grass or some chaeto or something to let him munch on.

 

[vinnyl]

I have a 150 gallon. I feed him a variety of foods: Sea weed (green sheet), flakes, frozen brine, frozen oyster eggs etc… I always thought I was overfeeding him. I will try some caulerpa as well.

 

[azfishgal]

How old is your tank? I started mine in February and I just started putting my tangs in a month ago. They are always picking on my rock, but have yet to touch my corals. I was actually going to clean off my loc lines because some algea had started to grow on them, but it's now half gone because the Sailfin and Hippo are eating it.

This is why you usually find that it's better to put Tangs in a more established tank, your sure to have some type of algea for them to munch on. Oh, and my Hippo Tang even likes to eat the red slime algea.

Happy to report I don't have much more of that though.

 

[vinnyl]

my tank is 15 months old.... I've had Xenia in this tank for about 4 months, without problems..... just this past month that he/she started to pick on it..... I also give veggie flakes to him/her.
I also have a 72 gallon tank.... so I'll remove the Xenia before he/she kills all of it.

 

[azfishgal]

I guess it's a crazy hippo then. I did have one of my cleaner shrimp shred some of my Xenia frags. Luckily he only killed two and I had one left. He has since left the last one alone. But for a while I was about ready to cook up a shrimp.

 

[vinnyl]

Originally Posted by azfishgal
I guess it's a crazy hippo then. I did have one of my cleaner shrimp shred some of my Xenia frags. Luckily he only killed two and I had one left. He has since left the last one alone. But for a while I was about ready to cook up a shrimp.

 

[crimzy]

My brother in law had a hippo that started eating his xenia also. The fish was well fed but just developed a taste for xenia. It got so bad that he had to remove the tang from the tank and relocate into my fowlr. Sucks for him.