HELP! Fighting Tangs

[Vicki]

Hi
I've done what the books all say not to do, I introduced a yellow tang AFTER a purple tang was aready in here. You can't always dictate what order the fish arrive! Anyway, the purple beats up the yellow tang using the spine on his tail stock. I can't catch the purple so I have put a dividing plastic grill down the middle of he tank to seperate them for a week or two to see if that helps. Now the purple tang spends some time patrolling up and down the divider and othe times he is busy grazing. I'm hoping he'll get used to seeing the yellow here and ignore it completely. Any suggestions?

 

[ezy33]

If dividing the tank doesn't work, You could try netting the bully. In essence you become the alpha fish. Any time the bully starts to be aggressive you chase him with a net. Or remove the bully for a few days and rearrange the tank. Good luck!

 

[melosu58]

Turn the lights out and rearrange some of the rock. It always worked for me.

 

[HN1]

I agree with Mike on this, but doubt that they will ever get along. There's a reason that all of the books say not to try it.

If dividing the tank doesn't work, You could try netting the bully. In essence you become the alpha fish. Any time the bully starts to be aggressive you chase him with a net. Or remove the bully for a few days and rearrange the tank. Good luck!

Stressing out the dominant fish won't help in the least and may very well exacerbate the situation.

 

[ezy33]

Stressing out the dominant fish won't help in the least and may very well exacerbate the situation.

It's worked for me, especially when you can't catch the offending fish without removing all your rock.