Still trying to wrap my head around this one, but just posting to just to share. Something odd has happened within my community of tangs that I never thought would happen. Basically over the last two days my second most aggressive tang (a powder brown) has completely become a victim of abuse to one of the least aggressive tangs in my system or so I thought (a blond naso). Temporarily removed the naso as a result as it got so bad it wouldn’t let the pb leave the top corner. Just to also throw it out. These two tang have been living together fine along 10 other tangs over the last eight months with virtually 0 fighting. Yes I know tang behavior is unpredictable from tank to tank especially When you mix so many and I’m not looking for solutions on how to remedy. This post is more to gain thinking around how such a dominant fish could lose its edge in control over a tank overnight and what could have spark such a reversal in behavior.
How the tides have turned (tang aggression)
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On a very different scale of a problem, I've had a small tank up for at least 9 months with only two fish-- a Pygmy Angel and a Clown fish. Not a problem until a day ago, when BANG! The Angel turns vicious and relentless on a dime, and won't let the Clown rest a single minute. I let it go on until the morning, and finally pulled the Clown because it became obvious that it was going to get beat to death. 
You never know when a fish might snap.
You never know when a fish might snap.
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Tangdora
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Still a similar situation. One thing to see agression on new adds when fear of home loss, food scarcity and mating completion kick in. But after all that dies off and peace is establish for weeks months or years it just so odd to see establish tank mates start to fight. Dog eat Dogs world I guess. PB must have been eating to much of the nori clip and the naso got offended who knows.On a very different scale of a problem, I've had a small tank up for at least 9 months with only two fish-- a Pygmy Angel and a Clown fish. Not a problem until a day ago, when BANG! The Angel turns vicious and relentless on a dime, and won't let the Clown rest a single minute. I let it go on until the morning, and finally pulled the Clown because it became obvious that it was going to get beat to death.
You never know when a fish might snap.
CBonito
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Has anything at all changed in the tank? A rock moved? A change to anything? That can sometimes trigger a "reshuffle" of the hierarchy. A lot of their behavior is tied to territory.
I've had several times where changing the scape brought on aggression as they all tried to figure out their places.
This is the normal flow of competition between fish living in the artificial world we create for them. They will try to get along for a time but eventually they grow hard enough that they are not willing to share the space & food & and personalities (especially the pent up aggression) that each fish has had to endure since they were first introduced into captivity.
The plankton that snapped the fishes lateral line. Once the truces are broken the whole tank has to shuffle the caudal fins to see who is going to call the shots. Peace in a contested water volume doesn’t necessarily have to exist no matter how much we want it to prevail.
Freedom. Some fish won’t share it.
The plankton that snapped the fishes lateral line. Once the truces are broken the whole tank has to shuffle the caudal fins to see who is going to call the shots. Peace in a contested water volume doesn’t necessarily have to exist no matter how much we want it to prevail.
Freedom. Some fish won’t share it.
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