I think that's a great choice - mine's my favorite fish. They are a little high strung, and anytime there is a disruption he will get obviously stressed, but I don't think overall they are any more difficult or demanding than their yellow cousins. My hippo gets a white spot or two on occasion - recently I moved his tank to make room for a new one and he broke out with a couple spots - but they always disappear within a day or so without treatment. I feed a lot of greens, spirulina flakes every day and fresh broccoli or romaine twice a week, and the fish eats (and poo's [img]/ubb/smile.gif[/img]) like a horse. Good luck.

i have tried to keep them on 3 diefrent ocasions but never could. but i have been able to keep a yellow and a powder brown tang without a problem. they are very fagiel for the first 2 months after they realy become aclumated they should be fine

i would like to get another if it were not for the fact that the one i had got some rather unsightly head erosion and did contact whitespot on a few occassions, though probably no more that my raccoon BF i have now.

I am also thinking of adding one to my tank (125 gal). I really would like a blue fish but there are not a lot out there (besides damsels and a sunrise dottyback). However, I have been discouraged at the relative ease at which these fish seem to stress out. I have a really great tank right now and I would hate to cause major problems because of this relatively high risk fish.

I am going to get a couple of cleaner shrimp and let them get established in the tank before I even think of adding a regal tang. This might also help your situation, razor.

may be an ignorant question but
how do the cleaner shrimp get to the fish?
also what is the goin rate for them.

i use to like the cleaner wrasses but havent seen them around in quite a while. had some pretty good success with them until they decide to jump.

my lfs has hade his ofr about 5 yers and never has hade a problem if your going to get one and can find them the yellow belly hippo are a lot harder and helther fish. they do cost a lot moer but they also dont do that thing with hiding on their side like most regular hippo tangs do. i also think that the price usualy causes the shipers to take a little extra time and cair in shiping them

We've had a blue hippo tang for about 7 months. He's my favorite fish too. Every now and then a white spot but they disappear as fast as they show up. We did have a cleaner shrimp (unfortunately he died a couple weeks ago due to I believe low salinity problem) and the fish would swim over to the shrimp and sorta back up to him, the shrimp would then start to clean the fish. It was great to watch. We hope to get another shrimp in the future. I think the shrimp helped us in not having any ich problems. JMO

In my 110 reef (established 1 year) I have 1-Yellow Tang; 1-Coral Beauty; 2-Firefish; 2-False Percula Clowns; 1-Mandarin; 1-Royal Gramma; 1-Neon Dottyback. I am thinking of getting a Blue Hippo Tang, but am concerned about them being prone to ich. Comments?

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Jim - GO HOGS GO!
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they do appear to contact whitespot more frequently than other inhabitants that i have had.

also size may be an issue. is the 110 a 4' long setup?

there are aquarists that have them with not many problems but they can be a bit difficult.

Thanks everyone, as soon as I can find a nice one at my LFS I plan to get it. [img]/ubb/biggrin.gif[/img]

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Jim - GO HOGS GO!
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I would not be as much concerned about the ick, given good water parameters, as I would be with the compatibility with the established yellow tang. Conspecifics that are introduced into tank at different times (may) result in aggression towards the new tang. I'm not saying this will happen in your tank however just keep an eye on this.
Gary

I have a regal tang in my 120G tank. Had him about 2 months. Doing very well. When I first got him he hid in the rocks and barely came out for 2 weeks. Got white spots all over. I raised the tank temp to 30 C(86 F) and the white spots cleared up in 3 days. After 2 weeks I lowered the temperature to 82 F and the white spots came back. Again as soon as the temp. was raised to 86 F they cleared up.

Fish is doing well now. Eats everything.

Karun

as a result are you now maintaining the tank temp at 86 ?

Karun,

I've heard that keeping the temp up will help control ich. But is it possible that you may have been just following the normal cycle of the disease. The free-swimming stage of the parasite lasts about 10 days, whereupon it attaches to a fish where it matures and then detaches after a couple of days to release more parasites to the free-swimming cycle.

Just my thoughts...

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-Todd
'Only the corrupted can recognize true innocence for what it is.'

The tank temp is at 84 F. All the fish, coral, anemones seem to be okay.
It has been a month since the tang has had any white spots so it is beyond the normal cycle. The higher temperature just accelarates the life cycle. The assumption is that after 10 days the fish will be stronger and be able to resist the infection.
I live in India and April, May is very hot so the temperature tends to rise during the day. I need to work on cooling the tank more than heating for the next two months.

Karun

[This message has been edited by karun (edited 04-28-2001).]

The hippo tangs that come out of africa and have the yellow stomics cost more but are usualy much more helthy and usualy dont have a problem with ick like the normal ones,