Rowdy Yellow Tang on New Blue Tang

[bluejam]

I just got a small Blue Tang. Beautiful and healthy for now BUT my fairly small Yellow Tang is hammering him. He nips the Blue and tries to swat him with his tail. This is the 6th hour since adding the Blue. Is this normal?

Will the yellow get mellow and finally accept my new Blue? He nipped a portion of the Blue's fin. Will it grow back?

I just turned off the lights as it is early evening now and all is calm for now.

Please advise...I am worried and love them both.

 

[steve r]

how big is your tank? tangs can be tricky to keep more than one in the same tank. a 125 or larger would probably be reasonable. you can rearrange some rock work to disrupt the resident tangs home terrritory. this may help

steve r

 

[austinsdad]

I'm thinking your 55g is way too small for both tangs - - maybe either for that matter. Yellows can be mean IMO. May not get better and subject the blue to lowered immune system and a nasty outbreak among other concerns.

 

[AquaBear]

Yellows can be mean IMO

I concur. My yellow was highly abusive toward my butterfly when I first introduced him, but I put the butterfly in *after* the tang. Tangs should be the last fish added, and not really good to keep 2 species in the same tank.

--Aquabear

 

[bluejam]

Well. here's an update. The Yellow has eased up on Little Blue. In fact, his fin seems to have become normal again already. He is eating well and swimming the whole tank. They even swim side by side. I realize a 55 is debatable for tangs but I don't have or want as much live rock as most do and figure they should do well for at least a year and a half, at which time I will expand my horizons by another 45 gallons.
I'll keep you posted.

 

[SirLight1337]

If hes still picking on the blue, find where the yellow tang hangs out, and rearrage his rock formation. He will be so set on finding his new territory he wont bother the other fish.

 

[melosu58]

I`ll tell you something that works for me is cutting off the lights for a while. Seems to cut off some of the fighting. I`ve heard the rock moving that Sir light was talking about works also. Have a good day

 

[Guest]

In fact, his fin seems to have become normal again already.

Wow. you posted a fin nip on 6/15. By 6/17 the fins grew back? That's some hypergrowing fins.

One LFS associate did mention something about yellow tangs being agressive to others. That was a bit of a surprise for me because I thought they mind their own business. While hanging out at the LFS, I did see some yellow tangs that are terrorizing some other fish.

good thing I didn't choose a yellow tang during the process of my populating the tank. Now, my tank is overstocked and can no longer accept anything else.

 

[haus]

I put a blue tang in a while ago with my yellow tang. The blue tang was only about 1-1 1/2 inches and the yellow is about 3 inches. I don't know if that had something to do with the yellow tang leaving the blue tang alone. But the yellow tangs aggressiveness is something that I haven't had to deal with. (yet ) But I am going to pick up a Coral Beauty next week, so we'll see how the yellow tang takes to that. I may be redoing rockwork like so many suggest.

 

[melosu58]

I dont think you will have a problem with those two