Powder Blue Tang feeding

[brian313313]

I have a new Powder Blue Tang. He started eating the seaweed sheets right away but I don't know how much I should feed him to keep him healthy. He doesn't seem interested in anything else at this point.

Thanks.

-Brian

 

[rdnelson]

He should eat other foods too. It is good to have the vegies for him to munch on most of the day but, you could pull that out an hour or two before you feed the rest of the tank. That way he would be hungry and may go after the other food. I think he would survive on the vegie sheets alone but may miss some good nutrition. At least that is my assumption but others may know better than I.

 

[brian313313]

I only feed him the veggie sheets once/day and it is after I feed the rest. He may eat the other food once he's been in there longer. He's only been in the tank for a week now. My question was how much to let him eat though because he just plows through the stuff. I didn't want to overfeed him or underfeed him. I've been giving him one 1" strip and he goes through that in 15 minutes or so. It seems like a lot to me.

 

[rdnelson]

They eat a lot when healthy. How big is he. Most of the experts believe you can't over feed the fish. It just means you have to do more water changes to keep the tank clean but fat healthy fish are worth it. To quote one store owner, "Would you not feed your dog just so you didn't have to clean up the doggy bombs in the back yard????" LOL

The key in feeding is, will the fish eat all you give them in about 5 minutes without a lot being left over.

 

[bruce 1]

I feed mine 2 full 8x11 sheets of Nori a day, + other food. I do 25% water change per week to help also.

So feed them to keep them healthy.

 

[smoothie]

bruce 1;801098 wrote: I feed mine 2 full 8x11 sheets of Nori a day, + other food. I do 25% water change per week to help also.

So feed them to keep them healthy.

Amen! Feed alot and do water changes accordingly. To introduce him to new foods you may want to wrap some up in the nori so when he is shredding into it some comes out and is automatically associated with being food. New Life Spectrum pellets are great and the small ones are a great size for everyone in the tank. A half a cube of mysis in there once in a while is always a welcomed new treat. Keep up the variety and keep it fun. I remembered the first time I did this with my powder blue his eyes lit up like that kid getting his first bike. Yep I'm a dork

 

[brian313313]

My Powder Blue is 4" right now. I do put a half cube of mysis in there every day but he's not interested for now. The rest of the inhabitants gobble it up though. I have some pretty massive filtration and he's the only large inhabitant so it shouldn't bee too bad to add some more algae. The chromis and dartfish like that too. I couldn't do 25% water changes every week cause I bought too large of an aquarium and don't have anywhere to mix that much salt water. It's a 180 with another 30-40 in the sump/fuge. So far my nitrates are still hovering close to 0. I will need to check the phosphates soon. I read that is the main source is from food and I don't have any phosphate remover yet. I've only had this setup for about 4 months now and didn't add fish until 2 months ago.