Powder Blue?

[Mad Scientist]

I have a well established 75gal, lots of algae growth and good water (for a FOLR w/wet-dry). Nitrate is never above 15 and ussually 5 or 10ppm.

I have a 5' spot fin lion and a 3.5" lemonpeel angel. My LFS has a 3-4" Powder blue that came in with an infection (probably ick) and has been in quarintine for a month now is doing well. I would like to add him to my tank. I have an 15watt UV and I use Kent's Extemre Garlic so I think I'm ready to battle disease. Any tips on these guys, are they really as fragile as some say? Is my tank too small even at the tang's current size? Will the angel bother him?

I have always loved Powders and I've seen some great pics on RC. Any advice would be much apprecaited. Thanks

[billsreef]

PB's really need a long tank to prosper. At the current size you could probably get away with it, but only till grows a little larger in a few months. Without that long running room (at least a 6' long tank) they tend to stress out, wither and die easily. The other trick to PB's is strong circulation, these type tangs are typically found in the shallows where the wave surges are very strong.

[Ovrclckd]

The biggest trick to keeping a powder blue in captivity is finding a healthy, eating specimen. I wouldn't even THINK about buying a power blue tang that I know is (or recently was) sick. It took me over a year (while I was working at the LFS), seeing about half a dozen specimens every two weeks, to find the perfect one, and I've had it now for over 18 months. Maybe that's a little extreme, but hey, mine has lived, and most don't.

Also, I kept it in a 480 for its first year, then I moved it into my 180. I think your 75 might be a little small, especially in the long run. So i'm leaning against that purchase.

[Mad Scientist]

Thanks for the replies, I had read all the posts about PBs (including the poll showing about 50/50 sucess) on RC. I have a huge current in my tank, but, I may just wait untill I get a larger/longer tank. I was planning on searching for a "perfect" speciemen, but, people starting telling me that all(virtually) these fish go through bouts of ich in captivity, so if the LFS has quaritined one and it has recovered, that alone shouldn't disquaify it, espically if it's eating lots of different types of food.

Thanks for the tips, guess I'll try to plan out adding a different fish. But, it's not hard to see why PBs are so popular. :D