ID confirmation please

Nemos Janitor

Nemos Janitor

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Joe's Mountain
We have got this tang a few years now. Just need to confirm it is a Pencil tang. (acanthurus dussumieri) this one is about 550mm

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Very tricky to ID that group of surgeons. Actually looks more like A. mata to me. Other extremely similar ones:

A. dussumieri
A. blochii
A. xanthopterus
 
The only thing that has me in doubt is the size of this fish. Whilst I have not caught and measured him he takes up close to, if not more than half the width of the end panel of 1000mm wide.

They say they grow to 54cm and i think he is bigger than that. Hence my uncertainty.
 
Nemos Janitor said:
The only thing that has me in doubt is the size of this fish. Whilst I have not caught and measured him he takes up close to, if not more than half the width of the end panel of 1000mm wide.

They say they grow to 54cm and i think he is bigger than that. Hence my uncertainty.
Click to expand...

uShaka has some absolute monsters. They look well over 65cm. Pretty sure they're A. dussumieri. We do get all 4 species in SA though and they're all quite common. Fantastic colours on the large males.
 
Yup looking at the PIC's of the xanthopterus it is very close. The size of the xanthopterus is much larger than the dussumieri so i am thinking it might be a Xanthopterus.
 
Keith, I had 01 in the tank, and it gave me no trouble (re aggressiveness towards other fish) at all. Lanzo took it. Then I got another one, gave me endless problems by attacking other tangs, got rid of it (swimming in the Jo-Jo tank with the lionfish etc),got me another, same story, so I sumped him/her too
 
lol no, Wesley did put it back after he tagged it. We have quite a few of them here in the bay, same size, they shoal. Good fight on light tackle
 
Nemos Janitor said:
We have got this tang a few years now. Just need to confirm it is a Pencil tang. (acanthurus dussumieri) this one is about 550mm

16324f9fd0048bdf0.jpg


16324f9fd00487b95.jpg
Click to expand...

seank said:
Wesley caught this one some time ago:

wesley_rapson_-_pencil_surgeon.gif
Click to expand...

brentch said:
I don't think it is A. blochii... They have a distinct white tail... Like in the pics below...
picture.php


picture.php


A. dussumieri looks more colourful from gMAN's link...

I think it is A. xanthopterus...
Click to expand...

These are all Acanthurus blockii, here is a pic of the biggest one that I've caught...
picture.php
 
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