Do people overexaggerate tangs

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Dave1993

Dave1993

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Posts a question in a forum, unhappy with responses…. Calling me ‘cringe’ is kinda like the pot calling the kettle black bud. In fact, it’s in a league of its own.

My location is tongue in cheek, a play on how a TV character would likely butcher it, your b@tthurt-rash from being upset at the responses seems pretty real.

Also, if the 1993 in your username is your birth year, I’m pretty comfortable assuming so, a millennial like yourself (I’m only a few years older) using the term ‘cringe’ can be summed up by the Hans Moleman pic attached. It’s a zoomer thing my guy, you ain’t it.

See, I can do ‘the jokes’ too, and I’m fairly confident I can roast you worse than you’d imagine . I’m not going to though because I still have the respect for you and this forum. We’re trying to treat you in good faith, meet us all halfway and quit hurling insults and being disrespectful.

I’ll repeat in TLDR form, next time just be more respectful of people instead of getting defensive when you don’t get the circle jerk you were hoping for when you ask a loaded question and people will take you more seriously.
typing paragraphs to me that i cba to read you seem abit upset
 

i cant think

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typing paragraphs to me that i cba to read you seem abit upset
That just shows how you don’t seem to care as much about your fish being stressed and unhappy in a tank. Stressed fish can go both ways, usually it will be the fish having an absolute spasm attack but it can also be the fish refusing to use the whole tank that shows it’s stressed. Usually a fish that isn’t scared or stressed will use the entirety of the tank (My tilefish is hiding in a cave but that’s understandable since it’s only his first full day in my tank). My fish all use the whole tank with exception of the tilefish but once he is established I’m sure he will use it all.
 
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That just shows how you don’t seem to care as much about your fish being stressed and unhappy in a tank. Stressed fish can go both ways, usually it will be the fish having an absolute spasm attack but it can also be the fish refusing to use the whole tank that shows it’s stressed. Usually a fish that isn’t scared or stressed will use the entirety of the tank (My tilefish is hiding in a cave but that’s understandable since it’s only his first full day in my tank). My fish all use the whole tank with exception of the tilefish but once he is established I’m sure he will use it all.
show me proof where fish not using the full tank means stress because someone who reuses old sand and murders all his fish i can't take serious i knew that since day 1
 

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typing paragraphs to me that i cba to read you seem abit upset
And yet you replied to my post… Mate, I couldn’t care less about your posts. Like I said don’t be disrespectful to the people trying to help you like I can’t think is.

you’re coming across as a massive bell end, when you’re probably a decent person.
 

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someone who reuses old sand and murders all his fish i can't take serious i knew that since day 1
again, that was two years ago and I also had only one other option which was to have them die of hypothermia. I had no heaters available to heat up the small buckets but even if I did do it then the fish could have had very bad burns from the heaters (I mean, there was like 12 buckets of just fish, 13 if you include the ones that died due to hypothermia). Also even if I did try it the other guys probably would’ve been dead before the water got heated because of how hard it is to heat water in a short period of time. I mean just for a 20g nano it took about 1.5 hours. This was a 4’ tank that was heated and everything matched so I had to put the fish into the tank even though the ammonia had spiked. The instant the fish went in I knew the risk I was taking however I still kept trying to get water that was up the country (About 2 hours drive) back to the tank. I did eventually get it but by then all fish had died. However, if that never happened then I wouldn’t be here with all these beautiful fish I have today. The other issue was how I mixed up the tubs with the old sand and the new sand, I took the tubs that I thought had the new sand and put it into the tank. Here’s the surface flow in my tank, and that’s just with one tang.
image.jpg

That’s closest to the pump (By the way this is in the middle of a water change)
image.jpg

Further away from the pump (Still a lot of surface agitation - in the tank the tang glides against the flow and goes towards the wave maker).
 

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Further away from the pump (Still a lot of surface agitation - in the tank the tang glides against the flow and goes towards the wave maker).
To me this is how you know a tang is happy in the tank it’s in, when it truly uses the flow. All 3 of my tangs have used the flow in the same way, the scopas and regal both constantly used the flow and glided against it then fell back and repeated that about 4-5 times a day. The bristletooth I have now also does this, I have never owned a tang that doesn’t do it when they have the chance. The other thing is how my first foxface did it with the scopas and regal, they all swam into the power head and then rode it back. They certainly are characters when they aren’t stressed or scared because of a tank being too small.
 

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show me proof where fish not using the full tank means stress
I haven’t found anything on proof except personal experience while working in my LFS for a year. We had a nice 3” Achilles come in and we put him in one of the smaller tanks that fish for sale go into. He stayed on one side of the tank (If I remember correctly, it was the left side) and because of the 3’x2’x2’ tank having room for one other fish - There was only a puffer, annularis Angel and 3 butterflies (2 maritus and 1 zosters). We moved it into there, the instant he was in that tank it was an entirely different fish, he used every inch of that tank and wasn’t stressed out or anything.
 
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I haven’t found anything on proof except personal experience while working in my LFS for a year. We had a nice 3” Achilles come in and we put him in one of the smaller tanks that fish for sale go into. He stayed on one side of the tank (If I remember correctly, it was the left side) and because of the 3’x2’x2’ tank having room for one other fish - There was only a puffer, annularis Angel and 3 butterflies (2 maritus and 1 zosters). We moved it into there, the instant he was in that tank it was an entirely different fish, he used every inch of that tank and wasn’t stressed out or anything.
But i have stated all my fish stay on 1 side of the tank apart from the pipefish
Purple tang
Powder blue
Lemonpeel angelfish
Midas blenny
Banded pipefish
Yellow wrasse

They all stay on the side i feed them apart from the pipefish as he wont eat anything i feed him apart from the pods i add every 2 weeks he goes hunting for ur only talking about the powder blue tang as ur 1 of them people and see tang then go mad but you hvnt once related to my other fish that only stay on 1 side
 

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But i have stated all my fish stay on 1 side of the tank apart from the pipefish
Purple tang
Powder blue
Lemonpeel angelfish
Midas blenny
Banded pipefish
Yellow wrasse

They all stay on the side i feed them apart from the pipefish as he wont eat anything i feed him apart from the pods i add every 2 weeks he goes hunting for ur only talking about the powder blue tang as ur 1 of them people and see tang then go mad but you hvnt once related to my other fish that only stay on 1 side
You never stated what your other fish were so I couldn’t comment on them, I don’t go mad over a tang, I simply tell people my experience and what others (And myself) think is the truth. Purples alone need 5’ of tank minimum and IMO that’s not for the final tank. The only fish in your tank that should be kept in 4’ long tanks are:
The Angel,
Blenny,
Pipefish
I can’t comment on the wrasse since I don’t know what genus it’s in out of Halichoeres or thalassoma.

Also, if I was one of those people that went mad about Tangs I wouldn’t own large fish in my tank (Siganus magnificus, Ctenochaetus binotatus, Genicanthus melanospilos, Halichoeres chloropterus). They could be over there because you don’t feed enough but again, without photo evidence we have to assume the worst even when we don’t want to.
 

Zionas

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I said no Tangs, and they’re still not my favorite group of fish, but I am now seeing some Chinese wholesalers get in shipments of CB Yellow Tangs from Biota. And that makes me seriously consider one, but it’ll be my only Tang and an exception to my “rule.”
They don’t get big, grow slowly, aren’t exactly “peaceful” but not as bad as some other Tangs, are captive Bred, and are just an icon of the hobby.
But the king and queen will always be my pair of large angels, and the dukes and duchesses my pair or harem of dwarfs.
 

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I said no Tangs, and they’re still not my favorite group of fish, but I am now seeing some Chinese wholesalers get in shipments of CB Yellow Tangs from Biota. And that makes me seriously consider one, but it’ll be my only Tang and an exception to my “rule.”
They don’t get big, grow slowly, aren’t exactly “peaceful” but not as bad as some other Tangs, are captive Bred, and are just an icon of the hobby.
But the king and queen will always be my pair of large angels, and the dukes and duchesses my pair or harem of dwarfs.
I find tangs to be rather more quick growers when they’re young, similar to wrasse they only slow in growth when they’re half way to max size. Also YTs can get big - supposedly they get to 1’ in the wild but 8” in captivity. I don’t know about the CB yellows but I don’t think they will get 8” but more 6”. I definitely agree, tangs are nowhere near what everyone say they are. Unless you can get a beautiful Achilles or gemmatum and keep it alive long term they aren’t what people say 95% of the time. I find the only reason tangs can be nice is if you get a “collectors” tang however, my blue eye kole is still highly personable and I love him but… the tilefish > the tang. If I had a 6’ tank and a bottomless wallet then I would risk the Achilles and try keep one happy but I’m happy sticking with the bristletooths in a 4’x2’x2’ tank and not trying an Acanthurus in there. Again @Dave1993 Id love to see a tank photo, if you can keep a PBT and a PT in there then you deserve more credit then what you make yourself out to be.
 

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I don’t think they get to 1’ even in the wild, all sources I have seen list 8” as a maximum size, and I also know people who’ve had theirs for 10+, even 20+ years and they maxed out at I think 4.5-5” (so 12-13cm). The largest I’ve heard of was 7”, and a seller that advertises on YouTube lists his 7” Yellows as “show size.” I doubt they’d get to 7-8”, maybe some 5.5-6”, unless they were caught at or near that 7-8” size. Could be wrong but so far nothing I’ve seen seems to indicate a max size in captivity (if grown from small) that’s much larger than 5”, and 8” is what FishBase and all of my books list as their maximum wild size.

As for the large angels, if I can get my hand on a pair of captive Bred Regals, even if they aren’t the Yellow Belly Regals, that would be a win. Blue Lines are still lovely, but the Regals grow slowly and I haven’t really heard of huge ones in captivity even after years. A user called outerbank has had his Red Sea Regal for 11 years (maybe more by now) and it’s maxed out at 6-6.5”. I would expect up to 8”, but hopefully not more than that. They seem to be slow growers so I’ll hope for the best if I grow them from the time they’re juveniles.

So I’ll see what I can get my hands on when I go home.

Sounds cheesy but, God will provide :) At least I hope.
 

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From my experience just believe half of what you hear about tangs lol because i have 13 tangs in two different tanks and they are all vastly different than what i was told they'd be. Some love to swim.. some pick caves and just defend their spot (purple tang). Two are absolute crazy murdering train wrecks (naso and yellow eye).

The smallest tang, seems to be the most active for me all over the reef never stops, basically on meth. ( my yellow eye) the others in the reef seem to have their areas and swim patterns, and wont stray too far from their routine. The Naso... shes insane and lives in my predator tank now.
 
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TerraFerma

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If what you're saying is true, then an 8 foot tank is too small as well. Do tangs REALLY swim much further than other fish we keep?

PS the answer is that some do and some don't - but they don't go wasting energy for 'fun' - they are going to where food is. In a tank - the food is given to them. But - many angels, triggers etc travel far further on average than tangs.

Have you observed a tang in the ocean for more than a few minutes?
 

MnFish1

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Have you observed a tang in the ocean for more than a few minutes?
Yes - why? I'm assuming you've swam 5 miles with one lol:)? The tangs I watched for several hours while snorkeling - spent most of their time focused swimming in and out of one large rock formation that was sitting out in the open.
 

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Yes - why? I'm assuming you've swam 5 miles with one lol:)? The tangs I watched for several hours while snorkeling - spent most of their time focused swimming in and out of one large rock formation that was sitting out in the open.
Just a question, what genus was that tang in? Different genera tangs swim different distances, I have seen Caribbean blues - Acanthurus coeruleus - swimming rather far in the wild (I can’t remember how far it was exactly).
 

MnFish1

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Just a question, what genus was that tang in? Different genera tangs swim different distances, I have seen Caribbean blues - Acanthurus coeruleus - swimming rather far in the wild (I can’t remember how far it was exactly).
I know - I posted the research several days ago. You are absolutely correct Acanthurus tangs can and do seem a far length daily. The point being - some do not - and if they do - its not 'for fun' -or 'to relieve stress' - its to get food.
 
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