Purple Tang not eating

C

charmander

Guest
I bought a purple tang 2 days ago offline, it has no signs of ich and it swims around great, nothing in the tank is bothering it at all none of the other fish are even agressive during feeding.
its tank mates are a foxface rabbitfish, marine beta, flame angel, chalk basslet, 2 percula clowns and a mystery wrasse
so as the title states the purple tang is not eating, it seems that he was sent to me this way because he is extremely skinny, I have yet to see him touch any mysis shrimp, brine, emerald entre, or nori. I have not even wittnessed him pick at the lice rock.
I tried mixing minced garlic with the food while it thawed today but it did not work.
What else can I try to entice him to eat with?
 
C

charmander

Guest
I tried rubbing the nori between my fingers if front of the return pump as well, still no luck.
 
meowzer

meowzer

Moderator
WELL....it probably needs time to adjust to the new surroundings......
Don;t hover around it, they can sense that....
besides the non eating...does it swim and look okay?
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
sounds like you've tried all the stuff I would have came up with :(
You could ask for samples of some of their foods at the fish store and maybe bring a few small bagies so you can keep them seperate. maybe you can get him to eat something they have. pellets, flake food, something. My tang eats like crazy, i couldn't immagine him not being hungry. How long has it been?
 
king_neptune

king_neptune

Active Member
Have you tried making your own food? My Tang goes bonkers for my home brew. Actually everyone does. I put some mysis from the store...folks come out and nibble. But if I add home made...snails, crabs, fish...EVERYONE starts rushing out to greet the food.
Just head to the sea food section of the grocery store. Anything that comes to mind is usually ok. As long as its saltwater. I do try to avoid dark meat like salmon and red tuna. Too fatty, but cod, halibut and other white meats are good. Pretty much I do 50% from full fish fillets, the rest of the brew is assorted from small amounts of scallops,oysters,clams,muscles, squid, and various shrimp.
Too much of one thing is bad. Several sheets of Nori is also nice to add to the mix. If you got cyclopeeze, be sure to add enough of that to turn it red. I personally add about 2 cups worth of freeze dried each batch. Toss it all in the blender, pour in vitamins and a dash of garlic if you want and you got some great healthy food. And as its natural...everyone loves it! Pur it into zip lock bags, seal and roll it flat like dough, toss it in the freezer and it will be fine for 6 months if you seal it after each use.
For about $25 in raw seafood, plus extra for any vitamins I add.... I can do a 6month supply for my 180g tank.
And for future purchases, always watch them feed the fish. never buy one that is skinny/starving.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
I make a similar blend to what Neptune does for my fish.
make sure its all raw and preferably fresh, no cooked stuff.
I do full shrimp (shell them at home)
scallops
squid
mussels
oysters
clams (I catch these myself in the ocean)
A little halibut (Also caught by me)
crab if i can get it cheap
fresh garlic
several sheets of nori
but it in the blender and make it into a paste. Then I take egg crate and put on a cookie sheet with tin foil on it. pour the paste into the holes in the egg crate and put it in the freezer. let it harden for a few hours then take out the cubes and put them in a freezer ziplock bag. My fish go absolutely crazy for it. My recipe consists of about 50% shrimp where Kings was more fish. I don't know that it matters as long as you get a good variety. Like he said it costs about 15 - 25 bucks and you have enough food to feed very heavily for a long time.
 
C

charmander

Guest
Thank you for your responces, I will continue trying new things and get this fish to eat.
I would say that the fish is slowly getting worse, he does swim around but more slowly than before and he also spends a fair amount of time swimming through the rocks slowly.
Still no sign of him picking at the rocks.
I am definetly going to try that sea food blend mentioned, how much garlic do you reccomend?
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
alot has to do with how the fish was caught.if you are going to spend that kind of money on a fish you need to make sure he wasnt caught by cyanide to slow him down to net him.alot of countries use this method.if you can find a good supplier that catches the fish with nothing but a net this hobby would be alot better.i would pay more money for a fish i knew was caught the right way.unfortunately purple tangs are caught in the part of the world where cyanide is common.they next to never recover.i hope you can get him to eat seems you have tried everything though.maybe put him in a qt alone and try.but like i said the chemical in the collection process is usually permanent.
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
hey jstdv8 how bout sending me some of those clams.
i cant find anywhere around here that sells wholesale clams just oysters .
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
well, I've allready blended mine up for food and sent the rest to the lower 48 to relatives. we caught 340 in 3 hours. It was our first time ever clamming. we had a blast, the kids were out there in the mud with us, really low tide so we had a n entire beach with about 300 yards of exposed ocean floor to pick through. More clams than we could have possibly gotten and there were probably 50 other people out there within 200 yards of us at any given time. The hard part is getting them out of the shell and get the poop out of them for human consumption, especially if you break the shells on the dig. Maybe next time I go I'll drop you a line and see if you still want some
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
just put them on the bbq they open right up then some franks red hot and fill up.i have tried to find clams here.i dont like oysters.there is an oriental super market that has frozen cooked clams i buy .they are great .not to bad of a price but i still know there is a place i can find like a 50 lb bag but still looking.
i have to make more fish food next weekend so i plant to pick up some of those clams.
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
Quote:
Originally Posted by deejeff442 http:///forum/thread/386234/purple-tang-not-eating#post_3391796
hey jstdv8 how bout sending me some of those clams.
i cant find anywhere around here that sells wholesale clams just oysters .
dee,
I just made a new batch of fishfood and I have a load (And I mean like 1/2 gallon) worth of blended clam that I won't have any use for. If we can figure out a way to send it down to you frozen I'll ship it :)
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
not really sure what a blended clam is?
its jeff by the way.but i get dee alot since its my wifes name and i use it on all accounts as deejeff
 
J

jstdv8

Guest
a blended clam is a bunch or razor clams I caught, processed and threw in the blender to make into fish food.
Excess blended clam is the same thing as stated above, but that's when you have waaay too much of it.
 
deejeff442

deejeff442

Active Member
i appreciate the offer but i dont know what i would do with raw blended clams.i am down to my last zip lock bag of fish food.i think sunday i will make a trip to the store and get me some clams.i had a customer here that told me where to get a bag of clams but havent been nowhere near that part of town yet.
 
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