Regal Tang eating sps

[cmanning]

Anyone here have seen their Regal Tang eating SPS or other corals. Very dishearten by the fact that I just caught our Regal tang munching on a particular SPS (I actually had 2----small colonies purple coloring all over w/neon green polyps). This 2 corals were placed on each end of the tank and at first I thought something was wrong w/water parameters. Phosphates were high but got those under control. The coral looked like something munched on all the tips and I thought it might of been a cause of high phosphates or the lighting. Well today I caught the tang munching on the sps and this would definitely explain the issue w/those 2 corals.

Now is a matter of catching this big guy and put up for sale. I've read on other forums about people having issues w/their Regal tang munching on colorful zoas and that in itself was a sign that the tang was hungry. According to this, the tang look healthy, fat and was feed 2 maybe even 3 times a day....so what gives?! Is there something they're lacking of that they need from the corals, I don't know for sure but this fish is fixing to find a new home. It's a shame but I prefer the corals over the fish.

Best thing to do is place it in Fish Only tank.....Now, setting the trap.

-Cindy-

[Derek]

Hmm, maybe there was some film algae growing on the skeleton of the coral. That is really weird.

[cmanning]

The coral is healthy and what I saw picking at was the new coral growth (new tips) on the encrusting side. Maybe there's some sort of deficiency in its diet that I'm not aware of.

[JamesR]

I wouldn't jump the gun and get rid of the fish quite yet. Have you checked your water parameters lately and are you sure the coral was in excellent health prior to the nipping? My experience is that many corals and inverts are more likely to be nipped at if their health is compromised. What are you feeding it and how often?

[Crab Rangoon]

They aren't well known for being grazers, since they primarily dine on suspended plankton & such. I've run into a few that began nibbling on coral, and they weren't easily weaned off, and were eventually removed (none in my personal tank, though).

What do you feed, anyway? Sometimes, fish will be enticed to nip at a coral because it is feeding, and has polyp extension to better grab food. On LPS, and some softies, this will involve chunks of food sticking to them & fish will go after eating the food the coral has grabbed - but on SPS (since they don't grab "chunks" of food during polyp extension) it's typically because of the slimey/mucous type film on the outside of the coral.

[cmanning]

I wouldn't jump the gun and get rid of the fish quite yet. Have you checked your water parameters lately and are you sure the coral was in excellent health prior to the nipping? My experience is that many corals and inverts are more likely to be nipped at if their health is compromised. What are you feeding it and how often?

Water parameters are as follow:

Salinity: 1.025

CA: 450

Mg: 1375

Ammonia: 0

Nitrate: 0

Phosphate: .04

PH: 7.9

Temp: 80.3

Both corals were in perfect health....other fellow reefers were inquiring about getting a frag off of it....but since it got damage, that's not happen any time soon. I've seen the fish try to nip at the tips of other sps corals. I can understand the fish trying to eat the food away from other corals....but the nipping has happened during the morning hours when nothing has been fed in the tank, yet. This fish has definitely increased in size and it's bullying my sailfin tang to the point that it looks like something took a bit off her fin, twice.

We had a friend come over this afternoon and he even notice the bullying and the damage that was done the smaller tang. They're not even from the same genus....so I really don't know whats going on......competition, I'm guessing.

A sheet (8"x7") of Nori is fed once a day----I split the sheet in two (feed 1/2 morning & 1/2 in the evening), plus once a day frozen mysis and cyclopeeze.

[+Lamont]

I just went through the same problem with my coral beauty. He started nibbling at my new birds nest. I thought it was my parameters also. I put some of the new birdnest in my new tank and it was fine. So I watched all my fish and saw him pecking at it. That ran me hot. So I spent two hours trying to catch it and succeeded. I took the birdnest out of the new tank and will probably sell it and put the fish in there. I will make it a lps tank. Today I checked my main tank and everything was fine so I added a superman monti. So far so good.

[GKarshens]

Melev's Regal also was nipping corals. He has video of trapping it on his site. It is a bit surprising to me how little it is known in this hobby that they are capable of this. They are such a popular fish and I have heard of several people having that problem. Seems like the word would get out more.

[cmanning]

Gabe,

I definitely agree w/you...and I think that's where I remember reading about the same problem. What's really surprising is, the more I look at this fish....there is a certain physical similarities that go hand in hand with the trigger fish. I hardly ever saw it grazing at algae and yes....every time the corals would get fed cyclopeeze, they would slime and there goes the fish taking it away from the coral.

So I finally caught it and it's sitting in a bucket w/an air stone and heater.....if by 3 no one claims it.....it will make the trip to LFS. It's a shame since we raised it from the size of a silver dollar....at it is one of the few fish that has that blue coloration.....but, we can do without.