Yellow Tang HELP?

[MikeS]

As above....I never said to feed it fresh produce primarily, nor that fresh produce should make up a substantial percentage of the fishes diet....but just in addition to available algaes in the tank as grazing supplimentation between regular feedings of more beneficial foods like Sea Veggies or Formula 2. Yellow Tangs spend a great deal of time (a good part of their waking hours) grazing the tank looking for green stuff to eat. Now since obvioulsly you can't have an endless supply of Formula2 in the tank, and most tanks have nowhere near enough algae growth to suppliment the tang well, it makes sense to me to offer up something like spinach. Better than nothing at all IMO.

I agree, lettuce should not be used, it has very little nutritional value. Fresh spinach is what I prefer to offer. Kelp or Nori would be more ideal, but it's not something I can get ahold of regularly around here. And if that's considered poor husbandry, please don't tell my Yellow Tang that lived for well over a decade on the above outlined diet...

MikeS

 

[spongebob lover]

lol i see your point

 

[MikeS]

I little more on the topic...

this is taken from the January 2004 issue of Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine- AQUARIUM INVERTEBRATES by ROB TOONEN, Ph.D.
Nutritional Value of Live Foods for the Coral Reef Aquarium, Part 2

Lastly, to come back to the issue of feeding these fish veggies, species with a long thin-walled intestine are well-suited to absorbing nutrition from crushed algal cells, but are poor at handling cellulose (which is a large component of terrestrial greens such as broccoli and lettuce). Species with a thick, muscular gut, on the other hand, may do a better job of handling high cellulose foods (such as the terrestrial greens) provided that they are given the opportunity to properly grind them up. Let me explain what I mean by properly grinding up food. Herbivorous marine fishes are not known to produce cellulose or any other enzyme to digest the cell wall of plants or algae (Lobel 1981). However, they can digest and absorb the materials contained inside plant cells, if they are able to break open the cells and release the contents. Species with thin-walled stomachs usually rely on very thorough chewing (hence the cow comparison), together with strong acidic secretions of the stomach, to release the contents of cells for subsequent digestion (Lobel 1981). However, species with thick-walled, gizzard-like stomachs often ingest sand particles of a specific size for the purpose of grinding plant and algae fragments in order to break cell walls to allow the fish to absorb the cellular contents of their food (Lobel 1981). These types of fish rely on the action of their stomach, combined with the grinding activity of the fine sands that they swallow, to break apart the algae they ingest and gain nutrition from it. Thus, the first type of fish (thin stomachs) would probably not gain much nutritional benefit from high cellulose foods such as terrestrial greens, while the second type of fish (thick stomachs) may be able to grind these high cellulose foods and gain some nutritional benefit from them. This difference among fishes may explain why some species of tang have traditionally fared well in the aquarium while others with apparently similar needs have consistently withered. However, even if your surgeonfish, rabbitfish or tang had a thick stomach, they will not be gaining much nutritional benefit from any plant matter in their diet unless also provided with fine calcareous reef sand to use as a grinder in their muscular gut (Tilghman et al. 2003). This may one of the reasons that some species appear to be showing increased success since the widespread use of sandbeds has come into greater favor.

The article in its entire can be found here...

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/jan2004/invert.htm

Here is a link that has a bit of nutritional breakdown of spinach...

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/proceedings1996/V3-516.html#Nutritional Composition2

The article is on tree spinach, but there is a comparison chart of nutritional value with regular spinach in there...

Here's some nutritional data on Kelp...
http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-001-02s020p.html


MikeS

 

[lunchie]

Just wanted to give an update and say that my yellow tang is doing great. He eats are large variety of food and now will not shy away from me when I come to the tank. In fact, he has learned to beg me for food if I am late feeding him. I try to feed on a regular scheduled basis but you know how that goes sometimes you just don't make it home on time...anyhow, RF members have been great and I really appreciate everyone's help. I still have a long way to go and I still get frustrated but I always feel I have friends to turn to on RF...THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!