My Yellow Tang is a Bully

[drandrew31]

Yesterday I purchased a Powder Brown Tang from my LFS. After putting him in the tank, my yellow tang began to bully him around a bit. I turned the lights out and the yellow left the brown guy alone. The yellow is a little bigger than the brown. I don't want to stress the poor guy out anymore. Is this a sign that I need to get him out of there fast or do I just need to give him some time to settle in and get use to one another?
I have a 110 gallon with a tomato clown, 2 damsels, orbicular cardinal, yellow tang, brown tang, & snowflake eel.
Previous to the brown tang, all my fish got along very well.

 

[Hawkeye]

You could re-arrange your aquascape and hope that the tang will re-adjust his/her territory.

Generally speaking it's not always a "toss" up to introduce more than one tang in a tank. I know others (with big tanks) have them - but I believe the sequence of introduction was important for them.

Also - I just noticed you didn't bother to Quarantine the Powder brown before introduction - there is a degree of risk to not QT'ing your fish and you need to consider that in the future. Two tangs fighting may stress the powder brown out and possibly allow marine ich and opportunity to gain a foothold...which could impact all of your fish (except the eel). It's not expensive - and given how much you've already spent on the fish - it would be a worthwhile consideration.

 

[MadReefer]

You can try taking the YT out and put it in a separate tank for about week. This will allow the PBT to adjust and settle in. Then introduce the YT. Hopefully it will not remember the tank and try to find new territory with little to no impact on the others.

 

[roadking05]

Had the same problem when I put purple tang with yellow tang. In my tank, yellow is the bully.

 

[playazballin21]

my neon damsel which is 5" was bothering my powder brown tang forawhile..a couple days later it got "ich"..i put some chemicals in the water and got it got rid of them...the damsel does not bother my tang anymore...i'll say just give it sometime.. anyway the powder brown tang can defend itself with tail dat it has

 

[Phyl]

A yellow tang is known to be a very agressive fish with the same genus. Things will likely settle down in a day or so. Stick to actinics between now and then. Hopefully they're getting used to one another. It also helps to hang 2 nori clips rather than just one so that there is no competition for food.

 

[ericksaks]

I agree with moving the rocks around in the tank. I've got a yellow tang who had the same issue. Loved to hit fish in the face with his tail. The rock switch helped.

 

[harryk]

Tangs in general need plenty of room and the two you have get pretty big so in a confined space they get pretty agressive sometimes especially conspecifics. Yours may or may not settle down and get along. You might have to make a choice of which tang you want to keep. I agree with Phyl and keep the actinics on for a few days and feed nori on 2 different sides of the tank and see what happens.

good luck
Harry