Blue Caribbean tang is stupid

[afrankiewicz12]

So my blue Caribbean tang is a snob and will not eat nori or the algae wafers like my old tang did he prefers macro algae and he is really good at keeping farms in different parts of the tank. Like one section is for the straw looking one and one section is for the flat kelp looking one and so on and so forth. But the parts that he does not manicure and just eats all of the algae sometime range into holes and caves in the rock ( I have the Marco dry rock so it's very porous) and he keeps scratching his head and body... He always pick the algae in a jerking motion to the left so you can clearly see the scrapes to the left. I was wondering if he will out grow this... ( still a juvi) or if he will figure out that he is a fool... ill attach a pic of the rock and of the tang if I can get a good one
that's one of the major rock menaces
And I couldn't get a good pic of the tang... However this is his most prized and award winning farm

 

[dannyp02908]

Are you seeing him get accidental scratches? Tangs will scratch their head and body when they have ich. Take a good look at him. Remember, just cuz you can't see it now does not mean it isn't there.

 

[dz6t]

Where did you get the blue caribben tang?

 

[joecamaro]

+1 on watching for ich

 

[afrankiewicz12]

yea at first i thought it was ich but he only has the scratches on his left side and i see him go in the the holes in the rock and eat the algae and most of the time he will do it successfully but every so often he will hit his head and will shoot into his cave like someone attacked him. i ruled out ich because of no stress, no agression, eating, fat and happy

 

[dannyp02908]

That means nothing. I have a Kole Tang. He is fat, healthy, happy and not aggressive. He lives with ich because i have no way to leave my tank fallow for 8-12 weeks having 9 fish. He is easily one of the happiest fish I have. Always at the top of the water for feeding times. Always in the open.

 

[afrankiewicz12]

I looked it up and ich is white dots only on his left side he has a few lines that's look like scrapes... 2 on his head, one where his dorsal fin meets his body, on the middle of his side and two near the bottom of his belly.

 

[acrofragger]

yea even if you cant see it on the outside ,it could very well be in his gills .further more he could be somewhat crazy ,we dont know how he was caught .
as danny stated fish can live with ich ,and your fish could have ich and when it gets really itchy it probly makes him scratch and dash off

 

[acrofragger]

post a pic when you get a chance...... and just watch him if he is uncomfortable and has ich you will know .happy fish dont swim funny

 

[dannyp02908]

ich is white dots usually. There is also black ich. Also, it is not always visible. It falls off during the life cycle. It could also be in the gills. Believe me, i have 2 tangs. I know that every fish in my tank has ich because i see it on one. Ich isnt selective. I can not see ich on any other fish. For reference I have a yellow coris wrasse, 2 black clowns, 2 perculas, bangaii, zebra damsel, yellow tang, kole tang. I only ever see the ich on the Kole but i know they all have it.

 

[afrankiewicz12]

Yea he swims fine around the tank and I got him from liveaquaria I'll get a pic when I get home but he has no dots and never had dots of any color. What would it look like on the gills?

 

[Brady]

You can't see it in the gills because its inside of the gills not on the outside.

 

[JohnK]

To me this sounds like you got it right in the first place; stupid fish banging into stuff.

Ick may be present, but when fish are scratching because of parisites they don't normally injure themselves in the process. I'm guessing that this particular fish is just overly picky about what algae he will eat, and because of it it's beating itself up. Stupid stupid fish....

 

[acrofragger]

thats right he can be a crazy fish .but i would garlic and selcon it j incase

 

[JohnK]

What's that going to do?

 

[afrankiewicz12]

Yea he is kid of funny about his algae he makes sure the rocks are spotless except his few farms where he will make sure have a bit growing. It's kind of good because until my LEDs arrive my old t5 bulbs grow algae on the frag plugs in the frag tank so every so often I'll take a plug out and put it in the DT and in minutes it's spotless. Also I always hear about the garlic method how do I actually do it?

 

[afrankiewicz12]

So bad pix cause he doesn't like the camera but you can kind of see the scratches... The pic makes the head scratch look way worse than it actually does and the body pic makes the body scratches look like they're not even there... Also the main body ones are healing fine but the head and dorsal ones are the same the final pic is his good side the dots are the dirty glass, his right side is a nice blue/purple

 

[JohnK]

Try taking pics from farther back and then cropping them.

If you have a digital camera (not just a smartphone) try the "sports" setting, or "AP" and set that for a low number/larger aperature.

 

[dz6t]

So he is an adult (from the blue color, babies are yellow), and stupid, no cure for that, sorry

 

[afrankiewicz12]

I'll try that some other time and he just color changed last two weeks I think the stress of shipping made him do it and I think he is figuring it out cause he probably didn't know the flow patterns of the different sections of the tank being new and all.