Gem Tang - Should I Pull the Trigger?

apb03 · Jun 12, 2023

My LFS just recently got a bunch of Gem Tangs in stock and are selling at a very good price. Unfortunately in my 110gal I already have a Yellow, Blue Hippo, and a Whitetail Bristletooth, and I'm worried about aggression.

I'd love to hear some opinions on this one. I know my Biota Yellow Tang can be a bit of a bully, but so far he's not done any damage. Is it worth the risk or should I stay away?

Troylee · Jun 12, 2023

I just added a gem to my other 6 tangs.. only aggression I’ve seen so far is the sailfin “punk” and my white tail blue eye at night time as the gem gets near his cave lol.. the rest including my yellow don’t really care.

ForTheLoveOfCoral21 · Jun 12, 2023

Spending that much, with such a high risk they would not get along? Id either rehome some of the other tanks or pass. Personally would not take that risk.

apb03 · Jun 12, 2023

Troylee said:
I just added a gem to my other 6 tangs.. only aggression I’ve seen so far is the sailfin “punk” and my white tail blue eye at night time as the gem gets near his cave lol.. the rest including my yellow don’t really care.

Interesting your Yellow was fine but the White tail was the only angry one, mine is so timid.

How big is your tank?

Troylee · Jun 12, 2023

apb03 said:
Interesting your Yellow was fine but the White tail was the only angry one, mine is so timid.

How big is your tank?

275 display. 3ft by 6ft foot print

Driftdiver · Aug 16, 2023

Where are the tang police? Unless these are small specimens that you are moving into a much larger system (300+ gallons) I think you should probably not buy the Gem Tang.

Remember, tangs in the wild cover large swaths of reef grazing on the various algae. The tangs need room to swim plus consistently regenerating forage area. In a “smaller” system there is not enough areas for the appropriate algae to regrow to support the fish. We obviously supplement the algae by providing greens on a feeding clip, but it does not make the swimming area larger. Insufficient room plus less forage tends to result people in aggression among similar bodied species. (E.g. Gem Tang with a yellow, Lipstick Naso with Villingi)

A lot of aquarist try to get around by overstocking the fish so no single animal can be targeted, but this presents larger bio loads and similar problems.

In the past two months I have seen a number of gems (and even black tangs) being offered at $550 to $600 each, which is about half the price has been for the past few years. I am not sure if there is increased availability or if there was little demand at full price resulting in the lower cost.

Hopefully that is helpful

Du$t1n · Aug 16, 2023

apb03 said:
My LFS just recently got a bunch of Gem Tangs in stock and are selling at a very good price. Unfortunately in my 110gal I already have a Yellow, Blue Hippo, and a Whitetail Bristletooth, and I'm worried about aggression.

I'd love to hear some opinions on this one. I know my Biota Yellow Tang can be a bit of a bully, but so far he's not done any damage. Is it worth the risk or should I stay away?

Should be ok, but you're always taking a chance on a fish.

exnisstech · Aug 16, 2023

I keep a yellow, Naso, hippo, purple and convict together with no aggression. I did add 2 yellows at the same time thinking the purple would be aggressive but one of the yellows started attacking the other so I had to pull one of them.

apb03 · Aug 16, 2023

I ended up getting the Gem tang and haven't experienced any major issues. As a precaution, I removed the Yellow tang and put him in my QT tank once the Gem was finished with QT for a couple of days to allow them to get to know each other.

After a couple of hours, there wasn't a lot of aggression in the QT tank, so the next day I moved them both to the display together. No issues at all between the Yellow and the Gem tang since.

Ironically, the Whitetail Bristletooth tang took advantage of the situation and promoted himself to the top tang in the tank, so he wasn't too pleased with the new arrangements, but that went away in a couple of days.