Tang issues

I see this in most tangs at the LFS as well as my own.
Almost every tang Ive seen at a LFS hides nearly the entire time its in the LFS tanks.
My tang hides whenever i come near the tank and Ive had him for 3 months now. hes gotten alot better but still very skiddish when I'm right close to the tank. Mine will nip at shrimp pellets that i put in for the inverts. He likes the formula 2 the best though. Its a tough situation with all those people tapping and moving quickly around the tanks they will have a tough time getting comfortable. How big of a tank are they kept in and how long has the store had them? are these in a display only tank or are they for sale?
I don't think adding that you are the aquatic specialist for PETCO is saying anything one way or the other as Old man has suggested. If you werent there as someone who actually knows about saltwater they would have someone else in that position either way possibly someone who has never even seen a saltwater tank. Its a position in the store just like a cashier or anything else.
I actually was trying to get a job a while ago at the local petzoo and that would have been my title allthough i don't know all that much about freshwater as Ive never owned one and thats mostly what they sell LOL.
Maybe moving them to a heavily rocked tank up high where at least kids can't get to them easily might help. and how about feeding them right before lights out at the store so they arent in contact with the customers during feeding time?

This has been a ridiculous thread to read. The guy just wants ideas. We've all brainstormed and bounced ideas back and forth. I've done it plenty of times with OldMan with much success (thank you). If anyone has any tips or tricks to help his tangs please come forward.

Purple Tang:
The Purple Tang is omnivorous, grazing upon algae as well as accepting flake, frozen, and dried foods. For proper care, vegetable based flake or dried seaweed introduced regularly into the aquarium is ideal. Seaweed of acceptable grade can commonly be purchased from an orient grocer and in some supermarkets.
　
　
Powder Red Tang:
Expected to be like the Powder Blue Tang, it is very likely herbivorous. Its diet may consist primarily upon red vegetation, or perhaps a supplementary diet of Gem tang eggs, which would explain its unusual coloration. It appears to readily accept dry and prepared foods. This tang can be of some difficulty.
　
Dussumieri Tang:
These fish are relatively easy to feed. They require a diet rich in plant matter, but will also accept meaty foods. They will accept flakes, frozen or freeze dried foods and will also graze nuisance algae.
　
Blue Spine Unicorn:
These fish are relatively easy to feed. They require a diet rich in plant and animal matter. They will accept flakes, frozen or freeze-dried foods and will also graze nuisance algae from the aquarium décor.
　
Blue Tang:
They scan the reef for algae to graze, once acclimated, they accept a variety of foods other than algae. Krill, mysis shrimp, Nori a good choice as well, they produce good algae sheets though. They're also available as flakes, which is very convenient since there's very little work involved during feeding.
　
Kole Tang:
formulas no. 2 , since meaty foods are often fed via frozen anyway, this balances things out a bit for the herbivores and chopped frozen squid, shrimp, and scallops, but not too much and Nori and plenty of marine based seaweed algae.
　
Yellow tang:
algae ,Sea Veggies and ocean nutrition marine seaweed selection, green, brown and red marine algae
　
　
Why I taking the time to list these? It is very simple really, all tangs will feed mostly on many types of algae, but the rest mention in other feeding habits that can be introduced may go well with one tang species but quite different for the next. So you need is to do is first get the store owners to restrict tank tapping and the other is their water conditions in which is very much in question here. The store you work is still a store just like walmart, i can believe that they`re not doing or offering you the best in the aquarium display and another question be, if there be a skimmer what model is it? If not, then this to is a main problem for the situation your having there. Skimmer model and number and the water volume it needs to manage, these are my two questions for the shake of the tangs.
　
I assisted one time by instant message a few years ago to someone who lives in Austrilia and he contacted me due to my experiences in which he readied about in a number of forum links. He had a tang problem, but he wouldn't if the store owner not sold him the blue tang, in which I told him that by having a 65 gal tank, he had no business what-so-ever in buying the fish, it gotten ich.
　
I assisted him in helping him too cure the fish, I giving him a number of instructions which he really needed to follow to the letter. My first instruction was for him not to add anything in this tank for the next 8-10 weeks and he needed to do more often water changes being it that he was doing 20 gals or less for he had no sump as well. I instructed him on buying certain few veggies to offer the tang, and my last instruction to him was not to place his hands in his tank water. The tangs ich cleared up in just a few days, they next day he tells me he bought some mushroom corals and fish and I reminded him of our deal that he needed to follow my advise and he said to it in return that he seen no reason why he couldn't buy anything for his tank, the tang was very healthy, swimming all about. But later in the next day, ich has returned to his tang and so again he followed my suggestions, all but one suggestion he refused to follow, and that was when the tang was healthy again, he would return it to the store. But sadly as it be, the tang gotten ich the third time and he decided to let it die, that the tang was to much work to keep alive, and right after that, he quitted the hobby.
　
I would think that you would be better knowledgeable that even if your water test is showing all good, it not necessary means that the water is perfect for which most cases in this, a tank has no skimmer or fewer water changes were done or not large enough, every tank system is different in this matter due to a difference in bio load and feeding habits.
But for in your store, I know you can not prevent most kids from tapping on the tangs tank, but maybe you might want to look into moving them to a more safer part of the store were kids hands can not reach, or is it that their tanks are setup in full view and were all the people walk by?
　
So there can be any number of tangs that do feed as the same with most foods one could offer, still there are those that will not and often one has to try often to to introduce the certain food that he or she knows would be nutritionist for their tangs.

I hope this effect helps you on the right direction and you always want to widen your fish nutritional diet for which would be a great improvement for its long term health condition.

You have to forgive me for at my age, I a tendency to cover the same ground at times in which can not be help.

Buddy

As with any subject....research, research, research. However, sometimes it is better to have someone with experience in the subject help you instead. After all, most of the time we don't know the credentials of the person that writes the given articles. Thanks Buddy, and everyone else that contributes to this site.

Shawn

whyzee250 said:

As with any subject....research, research, research. However, sometimes it is better to have someone with experience in the subject help you instead. After all, most of the time we don't know the credentials of the person that writes the given articles. Thanks Buddy, and everyone else that contributes to this site.

Shawn

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Shawn, it is more true then you might think it is for so many who write books or articles often themselves never kept the animals what-so-ever. I think I mentioned one some time a while back that an article on the H. Dragon Moray Eel was written after but a few short weeks of research and study out in the field and after I readied it I found so much wrong with his understanding on that species. Its strange but how can one come to a total understanding and acknowledgment of the species simply by watching it for a few short weeks. For as well, I never found again this article, and I not bothered to saving it in my favorite folders for he had only one thing right in it according to my years of knowledge of the H. Dragon Moray Eel for after all, I kept a pair for more then 14 years and in his article he says you couldn`t keep more then one. Also he was right from one point of view but wrong to another, for he said as well that the H. Dragon Moray Eel will hide away in their lair a lone. To the truth in that matter is that when these eels are in their juvenile stages, they will share the lair with other eels for it is only due to the eels do think of how they can survive for they will share the same lair until their beginning adult stages, then they will no longer share a lair with another of its kind.
One other I know who is supposed to be an eel expert, I will not list his name, but he if he should see this, he will know it was he who i was looking to have the chat of a life time, with another supposing eel expert.

This was sometime about 8-10 years ago, at fish world in Raleigh NC, fish world was having a book sale and this person was one of the two to be present and I was prepared in my mind with a number of professional views to speak to him about and ask him of his views on the species. Every time after I finished on a subject on eels or a species in general, he made his excuses to walk away by saying he wanted to see if his books arrived, but the store owner told me that he had no books to arrive, if he was to have any number of books different from what was at the store, he was to bring them himself.

The bottom line? Simple!! he didn't want to talk to me about eels, I figured that he was thinking that if he didn't sound as his such an expert as at the web link others ask him questions and again its like you said here Shawn we don't know the credentials of the person that writes the given articles. and I wish to add to it, were no idea to who the other person is at the other end of a keyboard, it could be anybody on the other end, but in here at AC, you know its me, Buddy (OldManOfTheSea) and so there be no games for me to pull here. Also at that web link this person is at, he was shown up by one of his admires when one other was asking for an eel ID, and I knew the eel right off and he said at his link that it must be a new species, I laughed to myself of that.

The reason he didn't want to talk to me on the subject of eels was, I introduced myself to him and told him of my years of experiences with a large number of eels species, and that he really wasn't this all supposing eel expert as many seem to think he is. For note, at his link were also there be a number of other experts, one there I know and spoken too all too often about eels, his name is Marco, this man has as great or even possibly greater knowledge on the subjects on eels, and Marco and I also share the same beliefs and knowledge of the number of toxins many eels have as both, a defense as well as for their offensive purposes. Marco is the only one I know that if I not know of something, I would talk and ask him what he knows on that eel species. Him and i had a number of conversations about eels and we never ran short of being bored, it was very interesting chatting with him. Also, this person who did that to me by trying to avoid talking to me, he never keep any eels what-so-ever himself, Marco does and still do.

Buddy

This seems like a very defensive thread and i'm not exactly sure why... I think all anyone is trying to do is offer helpful advice, which does include proper diet if the fish aren't feeding or aren't as thick as you think they should be.

Tangs typically need large tanks as they are very active swimmers. Part of their supposed 'lack of personality' or shyness could be a result of being in the typical 10-20 gallon tank that stores tend to keep them in for too long a period. Or perhaps as someone else commented, maybe just the traffic of people going by has frightened them and made it more difficult for them to be comfortable. My own yellow tang zips around my tank and then will suddenly go into the rockwork and hide out a bit, then come out and zip around some more. From my own observations, that is typical tang behavior.

At this point all I can offer for advice is that you try using garlic. It's supposed to help picky eaters and boost immune systems from the information I've read on it. Hopefully it helps and sorry if you feel offended by any suggestions that have been posted.

OldManOfTheSea said:

Walmart only sells freshwater and often when i walked into this one walmart store, their fish had a horrible coloration, specially the Oscars they were selling.

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:topic:The local walmart has stopped selling their fish and will hopefully be closing down their freshwater department soon. Every single tank they have is currently infected with fin rot or ich. They didn't even have a full-time person dedicated to the department. It was horrible to see the fish suffering for so long and management do nothing. It really makes the heart ache to see such abuse. These sort of disasters can easily be prevented, it just takes a keen eye and someone who cares.

<3Oscar, I supposed your correct on your assumption, but when you lived in the world as long as i have, and you learned of a great number of people in just how deceiving they can be, you will be on the offensive, but know this, every word i posted there is true. also, i seen too many even in forums pretending to be what their not or what they not have by showing their tanks are that is somebody else.

Your double post, is a yes for that store such as walmart has no business killing as many fish as they did I not noticed they have it at their new super store, which im very happ they discontinued it :dance2:

old man of the sea is a flat out, know it all jerk. all of his posts have this same know it all attitude, which is the rarity on this site. most people are helpful, not this guy.