Tang talk

[MandarinFish]

I read on MarineDepotLive that Achilles Tangs love themselves some salinity and oxygen.

I got one from a guy tearing his tank down, but I don't want to risk it dying in my tank. I'm *definitely* going to trade it to a store for credit *today*.

But I'm just curious if those who have kept them successfully, which seem to be very few of us, run an air bubbler in their tank or keep their SG high?

Thoughts?

Also, what is the HARDIEST tang, in contrast? Purple? Convict?

 

[Anonymous]

Isn't a typical reef tank at or near oxygen saturation anyway? Skimmers, overflows, sumps etc. all contribute. Maybe someone with specific knowledge can chime in.

Funny but I used to see Achilles Tangs in the LFS fairly often back in the 80's, but since I got back into the hobby more recently, I've only seen 1 or 2.

 

[dendronepthya]

I've had an achilles tang for about a year or so now. I try to keep my specific gravity at 1.025 which is about average for a reef. I am not sure that raising it beyond that is going to give any particular benefit. I have seen achilles tangs in the wild while snorkeling in Hawaii, so the salinity for a yellow tang should suffice for an achilles.

As far as highly oxygenated water, I run a large skimmer.

If I were to do anything different, I would have waited until I got a larger tank. My tank is 5' long which is not a particularly small tank, but this is a very fast swimming fish and could use more room.

 

[naesco]

Dendro is right. I hope everyone who considers one has a huge tank.
I would recommend you place a powerhead 9 inches below the top of the tank. Tangs like the additional flow which they swim against and the higher oxygen level high movement in the tank provides.
They are difficult to keep coming down with something just when you think things are great

 

[MandarinFish]

My tangs ate too much brine shrimp one time.

I had a powder blue around Xmas that didn't even last a day...

I see why there are tang police.

I'm having a hard time getting an LFS to take the Achilles off my hands. I thought I could just trade him in, but not all shops trade and the others are vary wary of Achilles, or already have a few.

I have him in his (assuming it's a he, I know) bag of water from the tank he's been in for a while. I'm running a pretty powerful air pump in there. The Achilles looks fine, but wants to swim. I'm now really concerned about keeping it. I thought it was a tougher species.

My tank is a 135 that has been set up for over 6 months, with good live rock and microalgae. I'm still skeptical of the Achilles' chances. Damn. I got him in a good trade, but shouldn't have even though the price was great (and the tank he was in was coming down anyway).

IF I let him out instead of trying a couple other places to trade him at tomorrow, I could drop in another powerhead as Naesco described, along with keeping this big airpump running. Of course, the Achilles would probably last an extra 24 hours for my effort and I still end up feeling terrible and losing a fish. Stupid me.

Has anyone other than Dendro been successful? What are your conditions and size Dendro?

 

[dendronepthya]

MandarinFish,
I have mine in a 60"l x 18"w x 28"h 120-gallon tank. There are only two fish in it(achilles tang and a flasher wrasse), and there is a lot of open rock work. If you want to see an old thread on RC about my tank, here's a link:
http://www.reefcentral.com/vbulletin/sh ... of+my+tank