Mystery bristletooth ID

[ameliadanielle]

This fish came shipped as a generic bristletooth tang, no specifics. I talked with the LFS owner and ordered it hoping it would turn out to be a squaretail as the picture did resemble one. This fish doesn't really look like the picture, so I'm assuming it's a grab bag of whatever doesn't fit their regular categories.

I brought him home in the shipping bag and acclimated him. He was in the tank for about 8 hours when the video was taken. It was much easier to see the dots and stripes on him when he was still bagged and pale. Now I can barely see the stripes.

The closest I was able to find on google is a lined bristletooth. I would like to know if it is in fact a lined bristletooth. What I've seen on those is they can get up to 10 inches and need at least 75G. So it would be way too big for the 55G. Any opinions, or should I wait a couple of days for his color to even out? He looks skinny to me, but he has been picking at the sand and eating the diatoms from the rocks, so I hope that's a good sign he is eating.

Edit: Ctenochaetus striatus? He looks pale in the video but this is the picture that I found most closely looks like him.

 

[Mike]

Not sure... Maybe a juvenile C. cyanocheilus

Maybe give it a couple of days to let it get comfortable and maybe some more colors or markings become more visible.

 

[eds48]

In my opinion, I think that tang is a powder blue

 

[Mike]

In my opinion, I think that tang is a powder blue

A powder blue tang looks like this:

 

[ameliadanielle]

Not sure... Maybe a juvenile C. cyanocheilus

Maybe give it a couple of days to let it get comfortable and maybe some more colors or markings become more visible.

The fish did appear almost a yellow color in the shipping bag, but today it's still grey. The tail is still off white but is coloring up with a little yellow. The stripes are still barely visible but the spots on the face are bright. He's also got yellow on all his other fins. But the majority he is grey.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see. If he looks like he's growing too big for the tank we'll have to rehome him. I just got worried when I saw that some profiles said the lined bristletooth got over 10 inches, I just thought they were mostly all smaller tangs. Like the Kole and the Whitetail.

I've seen him eating the diatom algae and picking at the rocks. I tried feeding more flake food with the regular food because it's softer. I've been just feeding the fish frozen marine diet and frozen brine shrimp. He occasionally grabs a piece of food, looks like he's tasting it and then spits it back out. I can tell he's eating at the algae though. Hopefully he'll put on a little weight. I've added a marine flake with garlic and algae flakes along with the frozen food.

 

[ameliadanielle]

Edit: I didn't have time to feed the fish this morning before leaving for work, so they missed breakfast. Tonight after water changes I fed everyone and actually got to see the new bristletooth out there grabbing food like he's been being starved. He normally picks around in the sand and rock, so I think he didn't have any snacks all day because I didn't feed them this morning.

At least now I know for sure he's eating.