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Painful Decision

redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I was originally going to post this as a question as to why my two yellow tangs are really going at it. But I then realized that the Tang Police Tang police would just point out the obvious, telling me:

1. Your tank is too small for tangs; and
2. Two tangs are one too many.

I picked up these two mature tangs from a fellow reefer over two years ago (along with a Hippo). I think he had four or five yellows in a (I think) 150 gallon tank. For two years everything was just fine. On a rare occasion they would make a half-hearted dash for each other, and that would be it. Since my Hippo died, the two yellows have shown increasing aggression. I don’t know if the Hippo was maintaining peace, but when he died was when this all started. The slightly larger one is now constantly and actively trying to nail the smaller one. I know what I’m going to have to do, and it pains me! :(
 
Sunny

Sunny

NJRC Member
Article Contributor
Paul

Get a vanity mirror and place it in the tank. I have one if you want to borrow.
The aggressive one will not leave the mirror alone. I have seen in a few days all will be well again.
The hippo are really good at breaking fights.
I would say if you can get one then do that as well and introduce the mirror at the same time.

Sunny
 
JohnS_323

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
They’re probably fighting over their inheritance. That happens a lot when a family member passes on!

Sorry to hear about the problems. It is a tough decision but I would give the mirror suggetion a try.
 
redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
This is funny!

I put the mirror on the outside of my front glass and all disappeared into the rocks except the long nosed butterfly. Like an extremely vane individual, the butterfly has the dorsal spines fully extended and is swimming back and forth in front of the mirror. I know it’s trying to intimidate the other butterfly it’s seeing. It’s pretty funny. Now I’ve added stress to all the fish in my tank.

This continues to be amusing….after about five minutes the male trigger has appeared just outside the rocks and parallel to the mirror. As it hovers in front of the mirror, I can see the one eye on the mirror side constantly moving back and forth as it checks out the “other” trigger. The butterfly has resorted to swimming the length of the tank and when not in front of the mirror, the dorsal spines are down. As soon as it hits the mirror, the spines come up.


downbeach said:
Re-home one of the tangs.
Click to expand...

And that is the painful part! I’m going to give this mirror thing a shot and see what happens. So far it’s quite amusing.
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

i tried this but it is only a temporary save. In your case - (like mine) another fish has become preoccupied with the mirror and the culprit fish is free to continue to chase the others.

you may need multiple mirrors.
 
redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
That’s it! The larger tang has been exiled to the sump. It started swimming backwards to the smaller tang and tail slapping him with the barb out.
 
GluttonousSolarWrasse

GluttonousSolarWrasse

A lot of people in this hobby like to be the "tang police" or otherwise tell you "the only way it will work". Well, they can all suck it, there can be many possible solutions to many problems, how the hell would anyone find new ways to do things if we just keep doing the same old thing? I'm not saying tons of tangs in a small tank is ever a good idea, but but 150 isn't a small tank, and maybe you are completely right, the hippo might have been maintaining the peace.

I have a wrasse that I am convinced does the exact same thing. My Vrolicks/melanarus wrasse Jacinto always chases away nippy aggressive wrasses from a new wrasse addition in my tank. I don't know if he's helping the new fish, or if he just doesn't like the other established wrasses becoming uppity in his presence, but he never seems to bother new wrasses, and only chases off the other established jerk-wrasses. Jacinto runs a tight ship, and it just works.

I have found the wrasse aggression rules are almost COMPLETE bull****. I'm a wrasse guy, and have a tank PACKED full of wrasses, spanning several genera, and many many species, and don't have a problem. Maybe it's the same for tangs? 3 may have been the lucky number, or perhaps having 2 of one species worked well while having 1 fish of another tang species. Maybe try to restore the status quo, and replace the lost hippo with another hippo of the same size. While we make these "ultra low nutrient feed our fish every three weeks, 1 anthias in a 300 gallon tank" type of tanks, people completely forget the reefs are the MOST population dense habitat on the planet, and tons of food passes through all the time. They are literally the busy, cities of the ocean. As such I call B.S. on most of the tang police rules.

Sorry, I just get really annoyed by the tang police.
 
asonitez

asonitez

I've been a tang violator for many moons. In a 150.

3 Yellow Tangs
1 Sailfin
1 Yellow Kole Eye
1 Valamingi

Meh.. aggression. The yellow tangs will flare up and chase each other. Occasionally. This is normal. I keep the tank well fed and all the tangs fat and no one has any issues. I have used the Mirror trick many times. I usually place 2 or 3 mirrors in the tank giving the illusion of a school of tangs and they tend to flare up and get tired and go their sep ways. Tang Police can go suck an egg. This is the 3rd generation of tangs in my tank as when they get too old or large I trade them into RedSand and get new little ones. I always PLAN FOR THIS.

I feed Nori exclusively inside of a Aquamedic Fish Trap during qurantine and Occasionally I'll toss the fish trap into my tank and feed nori and pellets inside of it to get all the fish used to the box on the side of the tank having food. As such I can usually catch w/e fish I want in my tank at almost any time provided they are not hiding in the rocks or too sick to want to eat. I also use it to introduce fish into the tank after qurantine leaving it with the fish inside of it for a few hours during the day for the other fish to get used to it and the fish inside. This works awesome for small fish and same for small to mid size tangs.

Tang Police can suck a skimmmate egg. They don't pay my bills or own my tank and as such they lick a bristle worm if they want to tell me what to do with my tank.
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

GluttonousSolarWrasse said:
I'm not saying tons of tangs in a small tank is ever a good idea, but but 150 isn't a small tank, and maybe you are completely right, the hippo might have been maintaining the peace.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong by Paul doesn't have a 150. He was referring to the tank the tangs came from. What was that - samsky's tank - the circular 150? Or was it a rimless 150? I remembered he had a problem with carpet surfers...:p or maybe it wasn't him.
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

Also keep in mind that for many people coming in from freshwater - it would seem that one fish is great, but two fish are even better for breeding. In saltwater it tends not to be the case since it is difficult to sex the fish and you could end up with two of the same gender and all out war in the tank.

So in this situation, it's not so much having two tangs as being the issue, or the size tank (to a lesser degree) it's two of "any" same species in which you cannot definitively state that one is male and the other is female. Anyone who has tried to breed clownfish and put the same two genders in the tank can attest to the damage/war that occurs. With tangs it's more vicious due to the "knives" in their tails.

Anyways - we all obviously agree one fish is fine. Two is risky (unless mated), and based on experience (e.g. asonitez) 3,4,5,etc. is possible in the right hands.

Sorry to hijack the thread paul - i know you decided on parting with one of the two YTs.
 
onefish2fish

onefish2fish

phil i think it was a 150 cube if im not mistaken?

anyways my understanding with tangs is that 2 of the same coloration and/or body shape will go at it head to head. if theres only 1 tang then obviously there isnt any fish to fight, and 3 will more evenly distribute the aggression as they get lost in the crowd.
i think he got away with having the 2 yellows for this long not only because the hippo was there to mediate but there is also a yellow long nose butterfly in the tank which can give that appearance of a 3rd yellow tang confusing the other 2 if that makes sense.

(edit, you basically covered what im trying to say in above post while i was typing this )
 
redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
It was Samsky.



It was a cube.



Hawkeye said:
yes - ! a cube...which is like what 3 feet in diameter?
Click to expand...

And I can only assume Phil (Hawkeye) was absent from class when they discussed the DIAMETER of a CUBE??? Either that, or he is still insisting that you can put a round peg in a square hole! :eek:
 
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