ideas for fatting up a Naso Tang - Naso lituratus
 

ive just picked up this skinny little naso tang( normally i dont buy fish that are not in great shape but i felt sorry for this guy),other than the weight loss,he seems to be doing well i dont have tons of algea for him to eat have tried macro algae from my reef but not much interest is shown any other foods i can try nori etc will be picked up in the morning .

Napa short
 

Go to an oriental market or asian section at superstore and buy this chinese cabbage called napa short. ALL my herbivores love the stuff and will eat all day long. Even my powder blue started munching on it. Give it a try

I normally use my napa cabbage for making kimchi :)

You may be fighting a losing battle. If the fish was collected with chemicals, and was exposed to too much cyanide, your tang may not be able to digest the food that it eats.

This is why you should only purchase fish that are healthy in the LFS. Feeling empathy for sick fish is certainly understandable, but the collection and shipping process sometimes is so hard on them that they are unsaveable by the time that they reach the LFS... :sad:.

Having said that, make sure that there is always some seaweed available. (wrapped around a piece of PVC tubing, held on by a rubber band and suspended by a string is what I do) - also, supplement with daily feedings of mysis.
Fish are grazers, and will eat a little bit at a time, all day long - not a lot of food at one time.

Good luck with yours :smile:

Mitch

Kimchi
 

So does my wife! I hope you don't feed the kimchi to your fish :biggrin: Delicious stuff but can it stink after awhile and taste even better when it does.

hahaha, I've never thought of feeding the napa cabbage to my fish... and definitely wouldnt feed the kimchi to them either :)

Napa cabbage also is good in soup :)

But on topic, I fatten up my tangs with nori soaked in selcon and garlic. Personally, nori is so cheap ($0.99 for a hundred sheets) that I have never considered feeding my marine fish a terrestrial veggie. Plus, all of my herbivores have gone nuts for the stuff (nori), soaked in garlic and selcon or not.

I use the pvc trick as well, except my method is a bit different. I cut my pvc pvc so it will hang on the edge of the aquarium and stick about 5" into the tank. I then took the plastic mesh from my DI filter and cut it down in size till it just covers the pvc pipe.

I wrap the nori around the pvc, then I wrap the thin plastic mesh around the nori, then I rubberband it all in place. Doing this stops the fish from tearing big peices of the nori off and then leaving it to float around the tank. With the mesh in place they nibble off what they need without wasting so much.

Not my idea, I read it somewhere else. Cant remember where tho. I also feed my tanks at least twice a day with mysis or other frozen food mixtures (like frozen formula one).

naso tangs like lots of mysis, or plankton, also the nori works great....


very very very very very few fish that reach our local stores will have been caught using cyanide.... more often it is the fact that the fish was not fed after being caught, then housed and shipped and housed and shiped and housed and still not fed, then you bought him.... now you have to get him to eat again....

Just to add to the really good ideas above, you could also try a mix of fresh or frozen seafood from a local Asian market. You'd think it should go nuts for nori though. I figure when they are thin the main thing is that it eats something. Use variety.

Hi, I like to use Julian Sprung Veggie seaweed. good natural plant food. I agree that while in tranship, fish are having a hard time adapting and must be coaxed to eat again, hopefully quickly as possible. Trying to save a fish that don't look too healthy to begin with, best of luck to you. Anything is possible. Regards Ken

big thanks to all the people who posted

ive tried nori tonight,thanks harold,but the tang shows little interest in it the birdmouth seems to love the stuff though,the tanng does nibble some of my micro but leaves the marco alone,but on a good note seems to love marine mega,i will pickup some mysis in the morning though.

isn't that junk food to a tang? sure they love it but if they eat to much of it is it going to be healthy for them in the long run or are we going to end up with problems like when you give people from a starving country high protein food all of a sudden and they develop pot bellies and all kinds of health problems?

Steve

the "Naso" grouping of tangs are mostly algae feeders to start quickly becoming varacious plankton, and large zoo-plankton feeders, it is a very natural diet for them...., but while they are young you do want to supply them with lots of algae, preferably brown(red,purple) varities

i guess i will try a little bit of everything approach to feeding due to little interest being shown to just algae the marine mega seems like a good food so far just wish my bird mouth wasnt such a pig.

Just to back up a previous post:

"In the wild Naso spp. are herbivorous as young; accepting more zooplankton with age. As captive unicornfishes become acclimated they greedily take all foods. Meaty types like larger shrimp and euphausiids, worms of all sorts should be supplemented with daily greens."

"These animals range over large areas on steep reefs, picking at attached algae; as adults zooplankton becomes much of their food." - Fenner

well some good news the little guy has put on some weight ,still hasnt shown much interest in macro algae and wont eat nori but i did pick up a pack of marine mega the one thats designed for angels and he loves it,but now he has a slight case of ick but doesnt seem to be bothering him,so all the food is soaked for a few hours in my garlic mix should have it cleared up in a week.. :biggrin: