🐠 Two Spot Bristletooth Tang (Ctenochaetus binotatus)
An Orange-Brown Body With Fine Blue Lines and Twin Black Spots • One of the Calmer Tangs • An Efficient Detritus and Film-Algae Grazer
 
📋 The Two Spot Bristletooth Tang, also known as the Blue-Eyed Bristletooth or Blue-Eyed Kole Tang, has a handsome orange-brown body etched with fine blue lines, blue spotting around the eyes, and two distinctive black spots at the base of the dorsal and anal fins that give it its common name. Juveniles show a brown body with a yellow tail and bright blue eyes, with the tail gradually darkening as the fish matures.
It ranges across a wide stretch of the Indo-Pacific, from East Africa to the Tuamotu Islands, southern Japan, and Australia, belonging to the genus Ctenochaetus, the "bristletooth" tangs, named for their specialised comb-like teeth, which are adapted to scrape detritus, diatoms, and fine film algae from rock and sand rather than graze macroalgae the way many other tang species do. Every Two Spot Bristletooth Tang we ship is feeding well.
It's one of the calmer, less active members of the tang family, and its efficient grazing habit makes it a valuable detritus and film-algae controller in a reef tank. It's fully reef safe and generally peaceful toward unrelated fish, but aggressive toward other tangs, particularly similarly shaped species, so it should be the only tang in the tank unless the system is very large. It reaches up to 20cm, so plan on at least 265L.
 
💡 Highlights
🎨 Orange-Brown With Blue Lines and Twin Spots: A distinctive bristletooth pattern
🦷 Specialised Bristle Teeth: Adapted for scraping detritus and film algae, not macroalgae
😌 Calmer Than Many Tangs: One of the less active swimmers overall
🌿 Fully Reef Safe: Won't harm corals or invertebrates
🍽️ Ships Feeding Well: A confident grazer from day one