Tiny Tiny Hippo Tang
- Thread starter Scoopy
- Start date
Not sure - the freeze-drying process may break down the chitin of the exoskeleton, or at least put holes in it. Some small fish and sea jellies take in frozen, whole cyclopeeze and excrete them in almost identical condition. I'm extrapolating that it would be a problem for this little hepatus as well, although the fish that I've seen this in were even smaller than this particular tang.
Jay
Jay
Ok, sounds pretty solid to me 
Do you know of anyone that has isolated the bacteria in hepatus or really looked into the digestion process they employee and how shipping/starvation effect the process/bacteria/etc? I've seen hundreds of these guys in the past and most perish in the COC of starvation. Even once you've gotten them to eat, some still never put any weight back on. I've had many looked at and no signs of parasites where seen, nor infections. I've always belived some just can not repopulate their gut with the bacteria/etc needed to keep them alive once stripped of it.
Along the same line, if one where to isolate and grow the bacterie present in wild tangs guts, would it help serve any purpose if fed back to starving ones to help jump start thier gut?
Do you know of anyone that has isolated the bacteria in hepatus or really looked into the digestion process they employee and how shipping/starvation effect the process/bacteria/etc? I've seen hundreds of these guys in the past and most perish in the COC of starvation. Even once you've gotten them to eat, some still never put any weight back on. I've had many looked at and no signs of parasites where seen, nor infections. I've always belived some just can not repopulate their gut with the bacteria/etc needed to keep them alive once stripped of it.
Along the same line, if one where to isolate and grow the bacterie present in wild tangs guts, would it help serve any purpose if fed back to starving ones to help jump start thier gut?
Gresham,
Are you sure that it is a lack of gut flora that causes this? I've seen the same problem in tiny angels and butterflyfish - xx number of days of starvation and you can just never get them caught back up. One of our veterinarians conjectured that it has to do with metabolism (digestion?) of the liver to a point of no return, sometimes you can hardly find the liver in them....no histopathology to confirm this though.
Personally, this has just become an "avoidance response" issue for me - I don't purchase any fish with a size listed as "t" and very few "s"..... so I haven't personally seen too much of this in the past ten years or so.
Jay
Are you sure that it is a lack of gut flora that causes this? I've seen the same problem in tiny angels and butterflyfish - xx number of days of starvation and you can just never get them caught back up. One of our veterinarians conjectured that it has to do with metabolism (digestion?) of the liver to a point of no return, sometimes you can hardly find the liver in them....no histopathology to confirm this though.
Personally, this has just become an "avoidance response" issue for me - I don't purchase any fish with a size listed as "t" and very few "s"..... so I haven't personally seen too much of this in the past ten years or so.
Jay
I don't recall the liver size but I can say it's a lot harder to get them to recover then small angels and butt's. I've had pretty large volume dealings with all three and by far the small starving tangs faired the worse. The liver is a route I will follow for now and see how that pans out.
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