Could I be overfeeding my Yellow Tang?
 

MY Yellow Tang is a pig. Not only does he gobble up every pieve of lettuce I let hang in the tang, come feeding time for the other fish, he eats that stuff too (mysis, etc..). I noticed today he's a little full looking around the belly area. Should I only be feeding him lettuce every once and a while, even though he looks like he wants it all the time? He also keeps the algae under control when he doesn't have lettuce to munch on. He otherwise looks really health, I just thought I might tackle this problem before it happens - if there is even a problem. Thanks!

I would feed seaweed selects or nori 2 to 3 times a week (tangs can have problems digesting lettuce)
My PT will constantly eat if I let him. I like to see a fish with a full belly

Thanks, the romaine is almost done, I'll try some nori next :)

I provide nori EVERY day for my tangs. It's the mainstay of most surgeonfishes diets and I believe its very important for their longterm wellbeing...

Take a look at pictures of wild tangs. They are robust. In my opinion you cannot overfeed a tang, BUT you can absolutely overfeed the wrong diet. Make sure they get a majority herbivorous diet.

I agree with jmaneyapanda - it's pretty much impossible to overfeed a tang, but it is important to feed the right things.

I offer my yellow tang (and her tankmates) nori, dulce and wakame seaweeds on a clip - at least one of these is available to them daily. They also get a rotation of 'blender mush' (homemade blend of seafoods and seaweeds), flakes soaked in Selcon, pellets and all the live-rock grazing they can handle ;)

The tang is enormously fat, as are the rest of our fish, but they're far from overfed. To me they look as they should - not the typical scrawny specimens we see at the LFS, which have been starved for up to 2 weeks prior to and during shipping.

Thanks guys. Merry Christmas.

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11448422#post11448422 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jmaneyapanda [/i]
[B]Take a look at pictures of wild tangs. They are robust. In my opinion you cannot overfeed a tang, BUT you can absolutely overfeed the wrong diet. Make sure they get a majority herbivorous diet. [/B][/QUOTE]

Most people would be floored to see how fat tangs in the wild are.

The tangs I have seen have been tremendously fat and actually made me laugh at how wide they were.

It made me strive to feed my guys a lot more, and now my tang looks more like those in the wild; SUPER FAT!

plain and simple, tangs are the cows of the ocean. All they do all day long is graze and graze and graze. A lot of people in the home tanks don't feed them enough and hence why they become aggressive and territorial to an extreme. good luck and keep feeding him.
btw both people are correct tangs in the ocean are chunky, they dont have pinched bellies like in most home aquariums.

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11450717#post11450717 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thor32766 [/i]
[B]plain and simple, tangs are the cows of the ocean. All they do all day long is graze and graze and graze. A lot of people in the home tanks don't feed them enough and hence why they become aggressive and territorial to an extreme. good luck and keep feeding him.
btw both people are correct tangs in the ocean are chunky, they dont have pinched bellies like in most home aquariums. [/B][/QUOTE] lol-thats good to know. i thought my purple tang was pregnant and i only have 1 tang in my tank.

todd

Healthy tangs with proper diet will not have HLLE. I feed 2 out of 4 types of seaweed daily. Definitely get some of the Julian Sprungs Purple Algae sheets.

My tangs eat me out of seaweed and home LOL! They go through about a sheet a day and would eat more if they could. I also feed formula 2 pellets and Mysis, marine cruisine, formula 1 and I switch seaweeds every so often.

[QUOTE][i]<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11448422#post11448422 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jmaneyapanda [/i]
[B]Take a look at pictures of wild tangs. They are robust. In my opinion you cannot overfeed a tang, BUT you can absolutely overfeed the wrong diet. Make sure they get a majority herbivorous diet. [/B][/QUOTE] I agree. They deat all day and need herbivore fare. Nori, spirulina,filamentous algae. A little meat doesn't hurt them either.