How much nori is too much?
 

My tangs ferociously gobble up the nori I put in. They seem like they are hungry all the time, and they are all putting on weight. I put it about 3"x2" strip about 3 times a day and feed a cube of mysis/brine.

To give you an idea, this is 2 days worth of skimmate (dark and stinky).

http://members.shaw.ca/webspace2003/skim.JPG

Is this too much nori? How often do fellow reefers offer nori?

I will start by saying that I am the least rythmic and strutured reef keeper there is. That being said, I feed a sheet at a time and see no increase in skimmate. Sometimes daily, sometimes twice a week, or right now I'm out. If my fish don't have a bit of a belly it's time to feed them. I have a powder blue, regal, sailfin, lawnmower blenny (who's always fat), and three damsels and three clowns who have aquired a taste. I've seen hermits eating some, and my emerald tries to steal the whole feeding station.

Basically, what I'm getting at is feed as much as your fish want, they are grazers. Frozen food will be eaten until they are satiated and then left to rot, whereas nori just floats around until someone wants a snack. Elastic it to something and let them have at it.

Just my two cents.
Mike

Cool, thanks for you input. I thought I might ask cause it's a new tank and I've avoided algae blooms for the most part (cross-fingers).

That's funny that your other fish have developed a taste for nori... I was quite surprised when my 4 chromis started to eat it also LOL

That is terrific you feed your reef 3 times a day, I feed nori a couple times a week, but every day they get veggie flake, and a frozen variety.

You might want to vary their diet up a bit more than nori and brine/mysis.

Brine is just a treat, so really you are feeding nori and mysis.

I would get a veggie flake food too, and vary up the frozen. I buy flat packs of mysis, bloodworms, spirolina, etc, anything I can get my hands on. Then I puree it, and re-freeze it flat in large ziplock bags. Then I just break of a chunk every day for them, and they get a nice varied diet.

I also use meaty flake, and pellets on ocassion too. I think variety is the key to health and disease prevention, i've never lost a fish to disease.

Amount of skimate doesn't tell us much, because it depends on tank size, bioload, feeding, and of course the actual skimmer.

You could be pulling out nothing with a crappy skimmer, or tons with a great skimmer, hard to say.

Regal and a Yellow Tang, 4 chromis. 240G + 100G sump. :)

Cool, thanks for the advice. I've been meaning to pick up some spirulina flakes also.

That is a light bioload, add more fishiessssss. :mrgreen:

Nori is really all your Tangs need to fulfill their dietary needs. Be careful with flakes as they all contain phosphates.

Nori is the only thing that my very large Naso Tang will eat - and only if clipped to the side of the tank - no free floating food for this beast. Of course my 2 Angels and Moorish Idol saw how much he was enjoying it and joined in to make it a free for all. I feed this tank (190g) 1 to 1 1/2 full sheets of nori a day.

Really? Is there any evidence of that?

I've been feeding more like 1-2 inches square per day, not anywhere near a full sheet!! That is crazy, I had no idea they would eat that much!

So, mine is for a 6 inch naso tang, 4 inch yellow and 3 inch yellow tang. And of course the lawnmower. Now, they also get some flake, NLS pellets, mysis and they have all been doing fine for a couple of months. I guess I will try to feed them a little more nori then...

I problem I have, is the second the nori touches the water, there is a feeing frenzy and the floaters usually all get sucked through the sump so that is why I don't feed very much. Do your fish actually graze on the nori throughout the day or just devour it instantly??

You are doing just fine, Phreezee
Good to see you feed your tangs 3 times a day as they are grazers and eat all the time in the wild.
If you want to vary the veggies, I would suggest Wardley spirulina discs rather that a flake food (unless it is spirulina).
The discs are hard and they fall to bottom of the tank.
Tangs love them

Naesco where do you get the discs from. I feed a half sheet in the morning and another half in the evening. On the weekends when I am home I will quite often feed another half sheet around 2pm. My fish go crazy and it is all gone in about 2 minutes. The rest of the day is spent picking any algea that has the nerve to show itself off rocks, glass etc. I assume they are getting something but there is no algea visible in that tank.

Wow, this thread opened up my eyes... never knew reefers feed whole sheets in a day either :)

Thanks for the tip about the phosphates Naesco.

Ruth, my Naso doesn't seem to eat much shrimp either, he'll eat a bit but prefers the nori.

Vertex, I get the same feeding frenzy :)

Wardley is often in the FW section of your LFS. Another good one is the OSI nibblers...fish crack. They stick on the glass.

Wow thats not very much at all, I feed 3 sheets daily, I have a Regal tang, yellow tang, redsea sailfin tang, Niger trigger, Fox face, and a pygme angle...these are the fishthat just devour it, and leave a little bit left over to grace on later!!!

I only have one yellow tang that eats the nori, so I just feed a piece 2" x 3" once daily. Old yeller is doing quite well on that portion.

Tons of it actually - Tangs have the long digestive tract necessary to consume veggies and though will heartily eat lots of protein rich and fatty foods, (mysis, brine, cyclopeze etc..), they will wither and waste without their required fibre. Normal established reef aquaria will provide most of the algae these guys require to graze upon unless you have too many grazers... considering the algae problems I've been having lately, I've considered cramming 50 tangs into my 135.... whaddy'all think? :mrgreen:

What I am questioning is the fact that sheets of Nori are all that Tangs need. It might be true that they can survive on just Nori, but I doubt that is all they eat in nature. I suppliment with macro algae from my fuge, bubble calurpa and chaeto.

My tangs use to put back 4 full sheets per day in my 170 gal. that was with 4 tangs a koran bi color ,flame , and 2 orange line chromis.

Can anyone give me some tips on getting my tangs to eat nori, I have tried wrapping it around a piece of coral, pvc in a clip and nothing seems to work? any pointers,i have two tangs...

kris

Just put it under a glass cleaning magnet and leave it for the day. They will surely find it and start to pick at it. All tangs should eventually eat nori really.

I use to soak mine in Selcon or Garlic to get them to eat..


mike

I use a glass cleaning magnet to attach mine to the side of the tank. Now that everyone has it figured out it is a regular free for all and quite a challenge getting it in there as my one big angel fish likes to bite.

i find this kind of funny...... i have no tangs in my tank but all my damsels and my 2 clowns and my jawfish (if any floats by him in the feeding frenzy) go nuts for this stuff........ i barely got it cliped in the tank b4 they all attacked it

While a fish may survive on nothing but nori, fed exclusively it certainly will not fulfill all of their dietary requirements.
While most Tangs are indeed primarily herbivorous, many of them also take in numerous small invertebrates, which in certain species most likely provides a significant portion of their protein intake in the wild. There are essential amino and fatty acids that are present in marine proteins that are not present in tissue from terrestrial plants or animals. Most fish also require long chain fatty acids (C20 and C22) that are also not found in tissue from terrestrial organisms, and this would include most species that have been classified as herbivores. (both freshwater as well as marine)

Even more importantly, in the wild these fish graze continuously all day long on these various algae species, and the invertebrates found within them, which is certainly something that does not take place in most aquarium settings. In other words, in the wild they have a constant source of varied nutrition, from sun up, to sun down, and there's a never ending supply of it. The reason for the long digestive tract, is that the bulk of their diet is of low nutritional value, hence the need to break it down fully before it passes as waste. If they didn't, they would pass most of the nutrients before they could be fully assimilated.

While the various species of Porphyra do indeed contain numerous vitamins & macronutrients, and can provide a certain amount of high quality nutrition, I don't believe that you will find a single paper or study on this subject that involves herbivorous species such as Tangs, that states that nori is in & of itself a complete food that meets all of their dietary requirements.

You might find the following two links interesting reads.

http://www.flseagrant.org/program_ar...tlas/index.htm

http://fishweb.ifas.ufl.edu/Faculty%...urgeonfish.pdf

BTW - I know what the professor involved in the studies linked to above feeds all of their incoming marine fish while they are in quarantine, including their Tangs, and it isn't nori.

Wow, some of you feed so much. I only clip in 1/4 of a sheet, every other day or so. I use it more of a treat than as their main source of food. Mostly my tang and bluethroat trigger eat it.

And that is fine for your tang because it is a Regal tang which is not an algae eater tang. Their primary food requirements are zooplankton so you should be feeding it meaty foods as well as a little nori.

You can tell if you are underfeeding your tangs because they will have a little piched in look to the stomach area.

CMGQ you should be aware that this tang will get the size of a dinner plate.
The 70 gallon tank is less than half the size it and all tangs with the exception of kole and similar species need. You have a beautifull reef tank filled with rock and coral but, your tank does not provide the necessary swimming room this and other tangs require. (6 foot length).

If a tang is not eating nori you should check to ensure that it is not a flavoured nori variety. Nori should be fortified with selcon and garlic from time to time to add additional nutrients to the food. The specialty algae foods you see from time to time (Sprung's etc) are expensive and a waste of money.

Thank you

Like I said, I feed nori every other day as more of a treat. I primarily feed mysis as well as a variety of other foods, and I soak with garlic sometimes and selcon sometimes. All my fish have fat bellies, so I'm sure they're happily fed.

Let's not get into the whole Tang Police thing. If you want tangs to grow to the size of a dinner plate, leave them in the ocean.

This is a horrible statement... I should hope that people respect the creatures they care for more than this.

but it is a true statement.... no fish will grow in captivity to the same size they will in the ocean........unless we have tanks as big as the ocean in our living rooms....... which most of us do not

What do you mean?? If you truly respect the creatures, you wouldnt keep them in an aquarium in the first place. Period.

Having said that, since we do keep them in aquariums in hour homes, we try our best to keep them as happy as we possibly can. At the end of the day this is a hobby for most of us. We can only afford to use so much of our paycheques towards the tank. But nobody can honestly say they can keep the creatures better than they would have been in mother nature.

Sure a lot of them get wiped out naturally, due to strange climate changes and temperature swings that wipe out coral reefs, etc. But that's a more noble death than having your livestock die because because your $19.99 Big Al's heater malfunctioned, or your DIY PVC joints started to leak while you went on vacation and the salinity in your tank got too low because your RO/DI unit kept topping it off with fresh water.

Run! The tang police are here! :mrgreen: I'm sure GMGQ wouldn't keep a tang the size of a dinner plate in a 70g. Good excuse to upgrade as it gets bigger.

Rob

Here is the discussion on this subject found at reefkeeping.com
It turns out that it is about the hippo or regal tang.

""Finally, no discussion of Surgeonfish would be complete without talking about tank size. This is an often-debated topic that usually becomes heated on both sides of the fence. Most everyone can agree, however, that the larger the aquarium the better off the fish will be. Many authors recommend certain "minimum" aquarium sizes; though it seems no one can agree on exactly what the "minimum" is. Realistically speaking, the "minimum" environment for these fish is any aquarium the owner feels morally and ethically comfortable putting the fish into. Each hobbyist must come to his or her own conclusions, but hopefully these decisions are made only after reviewing the data that is readily available.

Scroll back up to the paragraph discussing mating rituals and you'll see that Robertson has already given us a reference for territorial dimensions, at least during the mating season. If you take the minimum number of animals (15 - one male, two females, per group with five sub-groups) divided by the minimum defined territory (100m2) you'd discover the groups maintained a minimum of 20m2 each or a minimum of 6.66m2 per animal. For those of you not good with transcribing meters into feet, 6.66m2 works out to be roughly 21.8f2 per animal. That would be an aquarium roughly 7 feet long and 3 feet wide. Hmmm. For the sake of argument let's take the maximum number of individuals, packed into the largest territory known. Sixty-four fish (one male, seven females per group, and eight sub-groups) packed into 200m2. This works out to 25m2 per sub-group, or just over 3m2 per animal or about 10f2, or about the size of any of the commercially available 125-gallon aquariums. Hence, I would propose this is a good starting point as the absolute minimum aquarium size for any solitary individual.

Let's not forget, however, two important factors. First, this fish only spends two months of the year in such a confined space. The remaining ten months of the year are spent cruising 30 feet above the reef, usually cruising up to 30 meters in one direction before reaching the edge of their territory (Randall, pers. comm.). Second, even when in mating season and defending a territory of a given space, this does not mean this is the only distance they swim. For example, the fish may defend an area equivalent to seven feet by three feet, but this does not mean the fish swims in a circle that measures these dimensions, much like it would have to in your aquarium. Instead, this means it requires this much space as a minimum between its next conspecific. What is more likely the case is it defends the minimum territory as it roams about the reef ledge with the harem, or as it swims to the next closest harem.

What is known from keeping these fish in aquariums smaller than several hundred gallons is that the end result is a fish with stunted growth. The extent of the growth stunt is directly proportionate to the aquarium size. Following Choat and Axe (1996) and the understanding that Acanthurids obtain 80% of their growth in their first 15% of life, you can get an idea of how fast they should be growing in your aquarium. Combine this with an expected 35 years of age per Acanthurid (Chaot and Axe, 1996), we come up with 80% growth obtained in 5.25 years. Let's take this a step further and plug in the expected maximum size for Paracanthurus hepatus, roughly 12". After doing the math you should get the answer of Paracanthurus hepatus obtaining 9.6 inches at 5.25 years of age. Following the same reference, which states the first 80% growth is fairly consistent, you can take it yet one step farther to learn that your Paracanthurus hepatus should be 1.8 inches after the first year, and continue to grow nearly two inches every year from then until five years of age, where their growth will slow and nearly stop, at which time it should be nearly ten inches. You could also use this same formula when trying to obtain an age of a newly imported specimen.

At this point you should be adequately prepared to determine if your Paracanthurus hepatus has experienced stunted growth. The decision on how to handle this situation is up to you. ""



""

WTF?? Let's get back on topic. Gawd

I hope he is making plans now.
Once we accept these critters into our tanks we have an obligation to provide optimum conditions and care for them.

Rob, Tang Police! Me?? Where did you get that idea.\?

Wayne

Nori yes!! :)

Yay! My new blonde naso is eating nori from the clip! :)
Before he was just eating floaters that crossed his path. Was getting worried cause he didn't have much of an appetite.

I'll have to get another clip in that tank so there's no traffic congestion lol.

Do you guys have multiple clips?

I use 2