New kids in town
 

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WOW Congrate Tony Not too often I see you getting another fish all be it 2

J

Very true, hummmm I wonder if I've been a bad influence....:razz:

Just bugging you Tony :biggrin: Congrats on they new fish, they look great.

Very nice Tony!!!

what kind of tang is the first one.
i like...:biggrin:

Thanks - they're both fish I've always loved and found them both by surprise, I had sort of written off as "I'll never find these" (well, maybe not quite "never" but I rarely ever saw lavenders for sale, and I almost never saw crosshatches for sale at price that wasn't astronomical). As it is they are both tiny (2.5" for the lavender, same size as my "tiny" butterflies, and 3" for the crosshatch.) The LFS had another crosshatch about 1" larger but that was sold I think the day they came in but they keep fish in the store until they are confirmed eating. It was love at first sight for this little guy. For some reason the smaller one didn't sell at all so the second time I laid eyes on him I asked about him, they said they'd hold him until he was ready, in the end it was nearly a month that he was "psuedo QT'd" at the store.

I keep saying "him" but I have no idea if it's a he or a she. :) They don't get their adult coloration until they are larger, so it will be a surprise. I'm happy either way, I think both male crosshatches and female crosshatches are exquisitely pretty fish.

The lavender had a really bad hazing experience at first from my potter's angel. I was more worried about the sailfin but he couldn't care less that there's a new tang in the tank, so was sort of surprised that it was the potter's who gave him such trouble. But now he's healing up, his fins still have some healing up to go (nip marks). He's eating like crazy now, has discovered nori (right into the frenzy when I put it in), and is so fast he's near impossible to photograph (those two photos were the only 2 salvageable from the about 40ish I took last night!)

I saw your name on the tank with the trigger in it at the LFS. I was wondering if that was you or not. Nice find Tony.

Sorry, I should have posted that info. The tang is a lavender tang, Acanthurus nigrofuscus (max size around 8", and to me a really beautiful colour although some think they are drab - you kind of have to give them a chance but when they do colour up it's just "wow").

The trigger is a crosshatch trigger, Xanthicthys mento, and is a total juvenile at 3", the smallest I have ever seen of one of these.

Great pick-up Tony. You will enjoy watching the disposition of this fish change as it become familiar with the tank, and then of course associating you with food.

Watch those fingers around the tank!

Glad to see the lavender is doing okay! And ya, that crosshatch is nice! Probably the only trigger that I would ever get if I ever got a trigger :-)

Thanks!

Starting to see a bit of that already (introduced into the tank on Boxing Day, spent the first two days holed up in a buried crevasse - you could just see the eyes moving watching everything swim by). This is a very clever fish, you can just tell.

Were you ever able to keep shrimp with yours Dave?

I find that to feed my golden dwarf eel I have to maneuver the tongs very quickly down to the eel's feeding station - I feed him mostly krill (seems to be the eel's favourite) but the trigger has discovered he too quite likes krill so also wants that tasty morsel that's being so conveniently held still by tongs. :lol:

I'm just wondering with both of their dispositions to krill that I'm probably unable to ever keep cleaner shrimp and etc. in the same tank.

Yeah that first week was really dicey. I'm very relieved that they seem to have resolved their issues with each other.

So .. um .. shouldn't you be on a beach or something by now?? :lol: Dude, put down the iPhone and start on a Corona or a Pina Colada or something!

I gave up on shrip for the 2+ years I had my pair. I tried 3 large shrimp once, and they lasted about 10 seconds (2 went to the triggers, one for the mystery wrasse). That being said my crosshatch pair were 5" and 7.5" in size.

It may be quite the challenge to get food to your DGM now as the crosshatch will be very aggressive towards any live food.

I would say add the frozen food to one side of the tank to attract the crosshatch, then with the krill already thawed, get it down there fast for the DGM. Becuase he should pop his head out at the smell of the other food this should work.

Gotta say - one nicely stocked tank! I never owned both species at the same time. While I loved my crosshatches while I had them, I would have to say I don't think I could live without the DGM now. Good luck and congrats.

Oh sorry I'm not feeding live - just meant "holding still" as opposed to carried away on the currents. The trigger comes up to the tongs and takes polite little bites of the krill. I only use the tongs for the eel, he's associated them with food. The eel comes out for food only when he wants to - and does a pretty good job of communicating "Ok I'm not interested in eating right now" when he doesn't feel like eating (swims up to the food, sniffs it, then swims away. If he wants it, that food is gone within about 2 seconds) so if he hasn't taken the food within a minute I pretty much give up and try again the next day.

The bioload is definitely getting a bit on the heavy side these days! But things are holding their own for the moment.

Did you sell the triggers because they got too big?

Wow Tony Beautiful fish and a great snag! Guess this is just more intensive to set the new tank up faster :lol:.

I see you found the "Pictures" section of our great forum. :wink:

Great addition though Tony. Your Crosshatch is gorgeous. Didn't know they were Reef Safe though..

Really nice pair you found there Tony! Very nice additions! Great personality on both I bet!:mrgreen:

Nice fish Tony. Good choices, I'm jealous. I wanted a Crosshatch but settled for a Blue Throat as I couldn't see taking out a second mortgage to buy one. You're very lucky to find a small affordable one. Love the Lavender too. They are very similar to my Chocolate Tang, at least with the juvenile colouration.

Hahaha I know. I still can't believe I pulled the trigger on the purchase (oooh punny, I didn't actually mean that to be punny, sorry!!) but, and it really must be the size that explains it, but he (she?) was on par with the going rate on .. say, a nicely coloured carpet anemone these days (and not even the most expensive carpets!!) That same LFS had a pair last year that I saw that was 3 times the price for the two of them. Although in a strange way I think that makes more sense that a "pair" of something is worth more than two times one individual.. :neutral:

Josh, it sort of depends on what your definition of reef safe is. In this genus (Xanthichthys) are the crosshatch (X. mento), blue jaw (X. auromarginatus), and sargassum (X. ringens). They are supposed to be planktivores, their mouths even turn upwards as opposed to downwards as they are interested in open water prey. Clams and corals *should* be safe, but I guess I'll find out if I'm wrong here.

That said, I'm not sure if I trust him (her?) around shrimp like cleaners or peppermints (which is why I was asking Dave about that earlier).

There are other triggers I've seen in reef tanks, huma-huma triggers, pinktails .. maybe nigers too come to think of it. Although maybe it's hit and miss and these others, I don't know. Or maybe you make a choice not to have the kind of invertebrate they go after (things like snails or whatever). But everything I've read seems to suggest the Xanthichthys triggers are OK in a reef.

My butterflies are doing way more damage to my reef anyhow (you can see in the pictures the gorgs are all closed up) and I have to make a decision about them. :cry: I don't want to, so I keep hoping I can maybe get my other tank ready soon enough, then I'll just move everything ELSE over and keep them behind and turn this tank into a FOWLR or a BOWLR (butterflies only with live rock :lol:). I'd love to try a pair of semilarvatus butterflies for example (oohhhh such preeeeety fish :lol:). Failing that though I might have to catch them and sell them to someone with a FOWLR.

Nice purchase Tony! Wow those are really nice. These are both something I have never seen before. The lavender looks to have some reds and blue colors in the one picture. The Crosshatch is amazing!

Brad

The lavenders are exquisite in a subtle sort of way. At first glance many think of them as drab but if you stop to think, they wouldn't call them lavender if there wasn't some purple in them. And the more you look at them, the more you see different colours flash out from them. They're definitely one of my favourites, and at 8" max size they are a nice small tang too (especially for Acanthurus sp.).

Here's an interesting article about them: http://www.hawaiisfishes.com/fish_of.../fom_05_03.htm

I find the same thing with my eel and my pink tail trigger. Only my silly eel is always hungry (for silversides) and he will come way out from where ever he's hiding in order to try to grab the food from the tongs. Problem is my trigger is a lot faster then my eel and loves silversides too. So I came up with a solution......I take my large net and I hold the food on the tongs on the one side of the net while moving the net (in order to scare away the trigger, which doesn't always work, sometimes he can get under the net and a few times he actually swam into the net and almost seemed to try to eat through the net to get to the food :surprise: but anyways 9 times out of ten it keeps the trigger away) which allows my eel the time he needs to grab the food.

Laurie that calls for a video I'd say...come on! :razz:

I'll try to get my boyfriend to film it tonight, it happens that way everytime I feed my eel, so I'm sure my trigger and eel will put on a show. It's quite tricky trying to move a net with one hand and hold food on tongs with the other.

I find it unusual that you would not to be able to keep cleaner shrimp with that kind of trigger. I have 4 year old cleaner shrimp in with my Black Blotch trigger. I didn't put in those tiny ones however.

I was trying to get some photos which capture the lavender's colours. Long story short it's hopeless to try get a good photo which captures the details, he's just far too fast. I have deleted dozens upon dozens of photos of indistinguishable blurs.

So I thought I'd try baiting him with some nori and filming him instead. The camera I had in hand isn't great for detailed videos so I apologize in advance for the quality, but it's 100 times better than any of the stills I got. I think I'm going to give up on trying to get photos and instead focus on videos. I'll use a different camera next time and see how things turn out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajwKGbs5OA0

LOL Tony that rabbitfish has double chins, maybe you should cut back on the feeding? :razz:

The lavender tang is pretty, still darker than I expected though. I wonder if they're only light colored when they're stressed? I've only ever seen the one at our LFS and it was really pale in color (you could see the coloration in the fins much better).

I'm really liking that angel (?) you have in there. It sails onto the top part of the screen at the beginning of the vid. Is that a lamarckii? Ooh a pair(I see another one about 1/4 way through the video)??

A slightly better video. My first attempt at editing, so please be kind!! :lol: The video is about 3 minutes long.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77VzJheJIOc

Great video Tony! I loved it!
Glad to see the little X-Hatch looks no worse for wear. :biggrin: If I might ask, where did you get those tongs from and how long are they?

You know, I'm not sure anymore? One of the LFS's. I've seen them all over. They're about 24" long and came with plant pruning attachments as well, but I only use the gripper attachment. The tank is 30" deep and the stand is 30" so the top of the tank is at eye level so even standing on a stepladder I can barely reach the bottom without extending my reach somehow.

I'll see if I can find a link for them. :)

This is them: http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s..._ID=em-ztong24

Oh yeah. I've seen those before. It looked different in the vid for some reason. Thanks.

Can't believe this one slipped under the radar. Apparently there IS much work to be done here.

Tony loved the video man. I too was loving another look at those sweet, sweet angels. Sure is lots to watch in there. I'm envious as balls.

Great vid Tony, the tank looks awesome. And of course the stars of the show are looking spectacular. That lavender is a zippy little dude isn't he? :wink:

Oh and good choice of music, "wind beneath my wings" is so overdone :razz:

Great vid ...That crosshatch is flippin sweet :mrgreen:

Great Video Tony!! Nice first go!! I really enjoyed that, there is nothing like watching fish and listening to good music. Brad

Oh damn I didn't have my sound on at the time. I've loved this track ever since I discovered the Apartment in a Telus (burn Telus BURN) ad. Score!

Great treadmillin' track fyi.

I have been trying to capture the lavender in a good photo. He has such exquisite features but so subtle so photos just don't capture them. Plus he's very very fast, for whatever reason, photos end up so dark for me, I have to have the aperture wide open which gets me a razor thin depth of field, so getting focus nailed in is a challenge.

Here are the keeper results of my last few attempts.

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...DSC_0001-1.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/DSC_0011.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/DSC_0021.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/DSC_0001.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...s/DSC_0008.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...DSC_0020-1.jpg

Thanks for looking. Also, any tips for photographing fish gleefully accepted.

Tony! He's gorgeous!!! Wow, now I'm totally bummed I missed out on mine :neutral:

On the flip side I ordered a female bellus today, don't know why the males arent' available though :confused:

Now I'm totally going to be on the hunt for a lavender tang. Wow!! :cool:

As for photog tips, have an itchy trigger finger for these guys, I think my average is about 1 in 50 or 1 in 75 of a decent tang photo

Thanks. Yeah, that's about the discard rate for me as well. Guess that's par for the course then .. I was just playing around with the camera settings and found that I was shooting in JPEG instead of raw, so I changed that and will see how things change from here on. The thing that annoys me is that I have the ISO equivalency set to 1600 which is enormous and explains the graininess but the shots are way too unusably dark if I don't have it that way. Maybe it's just a limitation of how much light the lens lets in???