Care
The Yellow-eyed Tang is endemic to the Hawaiian Islands and the Johnston Atoll to the west. Here, they are most commonly found over shallow coral and rocky reefs, lagoons, and outer reef slopes, but in places have been observed as far down as 113m (371ft). Adults are usually solitary and spend much time grazing on algae and the microfauna living in the algae. Although attaining a moderate size, this is not a particularly aggressive species and it should get on well with most tankmates - the exceptions being others of its own kind and close relatives. For this reason, keep only one specimen per tank, and not with any other tangs. The aquarium should be spacious, mature, and aquascaped with plenty of live rock. High water quality and areas of powerful flow are essential. A healthy growth of microalgae will be extremely beneficial as this lively herbivore spends a large part of the day grazing with its flexible comb-like teeth. It is important that this fish receives a generous amount of vegetable matter in its diet in order to help prevent head and lateral line erosion. The Yellow-eyed Tang may also be seen on sale as the Kole Tang. These fish display an orange-brown body colour with thin, light horizontal stripes on the flanks and fine spotting on the head area. Another closely related species, the Indian Ocean Yellow Eyed Tang (A. truncatus) is very similar in appearance; it has the same body colour but the whole body is covered in fine spotting with no lines. Both species have the distinctive bright yellow rim around the eyes, and for some time they were thought to be geographical variants of the same species.
Feeding
Feed a varied diet, consisting mainly of vegetable matter, in small amounts 3 times per day. Although this species will browse on algae within the aquarium, its diet must be supplemented with frozen herbivore rations, green marine flake, Spirulina (blue-green algae), Spirulina-enriched brineshrimp, cucumber, lettuce, Nori (dried seaweed) etc. It will also take small meaty frozen foods, but be sure that it is receiving enough green food to prevent HLLE. Adding a specially formulated vitamin supplement to any frozen foods will be beneficial.
Breeding
This species has not been bred in the home aquarium. In the wild, eggs are scattered into open water.
