Tang ID *One year later

[Delphinus]

Looks great. Just curious, you say "almost" positive - what's the hesitation, are there features that make you sometimes think otherwise?

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Looks great. Just curious, you say "almost" positive - what's the hesitation, are there features that make you sometimes think otherwise?

For one the lack of information, after tones of searches I'm getting lots of fragmented results. I'm pretty sure this is an actual Orange-Socket Surgeonfish but if anyone has a Marine fishes book to ID it would be greatly appreciated.


Most of the photos I'm finding are in the ocean @ full size and with bad resolution so its hard to be sure. The tang in the above photo has yellow permeated through its Dorsal fin and what looks like a blue pigment on the anal fin while mine lacks both. I'm also seeing some differences in the eye color (Which could be the flash) but my fish has a much more pronounced orange color around the eye (aka Orange-Socket lol).

To confuse me even more the tang changes color from Gray to silver to white to black and all combination in-between.

[fishoholic]

Looks like a Acanthurus auranticavus to me

[Leah]

Beautiful fish....whatever he is.