Wanatabei angel doing tail stands to bite the surface???

[EnderG60]

Ok so I have a male wanatabei angle in my reef and he is a absolutly great fish, and has been doing wonderfully for the past 3 months. BUT lately he has been doing tail stands and what appears to be bitting at the surface.

He has been doing this pretty often and usually does it for about 5 seconds then rights himself and spits a bubble out(either his mouth or gill) and goes about his usual business only to do it again a few minutes later.

He otherwise swims and eats just fine, and his degassing wound healed up in the first two weeks just fine.

Should I be worried?

[rmougey]

Do you by chance feed floating food (flake, plankton) in your tank? It's possible that he has become used to grazing at the surface and is simply looking for a meal.

As long as he is otherwise swimming normally, I don't see that this odd behavior is indicative of a problem. That said, someone else may contribute with a different observation.

-Rob

[jmaneyapanda]

Be sure you are feeding a very proteineceous food often. When fish start chasing bubbles or biting at the surface, they can be trying to gain more protein (the water/air boundary attracts a lot of organic protein- which is why we see oil "slicks" on the water surface, and why we use protein skimmers). If you are feeding a good quality food, try feeding it more often, and see if this helps.

[EnderG60]

I feed omega flake, nori and a frozen mix of spirulina brine, mysis, bloodworms, cyclopeze and fish eggs all soaked in zooplex. All the frozen stuff is hekari(sp?) brand which ive found to be the best.

I kinda figured he wanted more food so I was planning on getting an auto feeder to feed some pelet food two or three times a day when im not home.

Any other food recommendations would help

[jda]

I have had my watanabei for 2 years this month. I feed them a staple of Formula II & I small pellets for about 60% and make up the other 40% with mysis, fresh grated seafood and angel cubes.

[falconut]

My Female Blackspot Angel (also a Genicanthus Angel) often eats the flake food floating on the surface. But, my Female Watanabei Angel hasn't done it yet. Like said above, he's probably just looking for food.

I feed mine Prime Reef Flakes, frozen mysis, frozen brine, Prime Reef Formula II, Hikari S Pellets & cyclop-eeze. Both of mine eat almost everything but really love the Prime Reef.