HELP! Mimic Tang not eating....

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rica5tully

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Feb 15, 2003
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Lake Mills, WI
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I bought a yellow MIMIC Tang about three days ago and he hasn't eaten yet. He's healthy otherwise, but getting more and more skinny.

He WON'T eat:
- spirulina flakes
- sheets of dried algae/seaweed on a clip
- frozen brine shrimp
- formula 2 frozen algae/seaweed

There is one type of frozen I put in there with krill, etc. that he samples. He probably ends up eating about 1/4 of it and the rest he doesn't care about at all.

Can someone please help with some ideas?
 

Max

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Jan 26, 2004
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Ideas no guesses maybe. Try getting it a little live macro and live brine and see if that stimulates it's appetite. Sometimes recently caught wild fish don't take to well to frozen or prepared foods. I hope that it will catch on and do better for you. Lots of times though when tangs start going down hill it's sort of hard to stop. In the wild they graze on algae and little critters pretty much all the time. They usually don't have a lot of reserves.
Do you know the people at the lfs well is there any chance they would take it back? How long did they keep it in quarantine? Tangs have lots of bacteria that live in their guts to help them digest foods . If there was an extended antibiotic treatment for this guy that might be part of the problem . Also where did it come from in the wild? Some places heavily rely on cyanide to catch fish . :sad
Good luck and keep us posted hopefully someone else wil come up with some other ideas.
Chris
 

rica5tully

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Feb 15, 2003
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Thanks.

I did see him eat at the LFS. He was grazing on rocks and ate their frozen food (whatever it was). He had been in their store for about 1.5-2 weeks.

He does nibble on some of the frozen food I put in there. But now he's hanging almost vertical (head-down) in the corner, under the power-filter. He spent the night there.

He isn't really breathing heavily, and I don't see any other signs of parasites.
I AM having a little bit of a cycle going on in the quarantine tank (some nitrites are showing)

Tank:
10 gallon
100 watt heater
Aqua C Remora skimmer with maxi-jet 1200 (is this too big?)
AquaClear power filter
bare-bottom with PVC pipe and tub to hide in
Ph: 8.2
Alk: 3.5
SG: 1.024

Thanks. I am pretty worried about him
 
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