Small tank tangs: Have you kept a Bristletooth tang?

[Theolox]

I have a tomini tang in my 50g. Unless it's feeding time he's very shy and hangs out near his hiding spot. He grazes, but he's quick to retreat. I can't seem to get him to eat any seaweed I put in the tank. He just doesn't seem interested.

 

[Joj]

First try with a bristletooth tang (whitetail) and it's beautiful. Swims all over the place and has a calm demeanor (helps that I have a large tank too maybe).

 

[TheWB]

I have a tomini tang in my 50g. Unless it's feeding time he's very shy and hangs out near his hiding spot. He grazes, but he's quick to retreat. I can't seem to get him to eat any seaweed I put in the tank. He just doesn't seem interested.

I have one in the same size tank as yours. Mine also does not eat seaweed but it will eat Sera Spirulina Tabs that you can stick to the glass. It'll graze on those all day but won't touch nori.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

I have this guy, no trouble at all!

What do you have for corals with that Pearl Fin Butterfly? I recently got one to fight aiptasia in a FOWLR with GSP thinking that if it eats some of the HSP it won’t be a problem, but if I can make it work I would move it to a reef later, but everything I have found says they are absolutely not reef safe.

 

[Dbichler]

How long have you had him? Beautiful but I’ve struggled to find one recently.

4 years. Yeah we need Hawaii to open back up.

 

[Spicy Reef]

Absolutely love Tomini we have in our 150g a serious work horse!

 

[Joe.D]

I have a whitetail bristletooth in a75 gallon. Beautiful fish, good algae eater, loves nori. But - he’s a bully plain and simple. He terrorizes my lubbocks wrasse so much that he’s all scratched up from hiding In the rock. He chased my diamond goby so much - who apparently jumped to his death when I was doing a water change the other day and had the lid off - that I’m wondering if the leap was due to being chased.

He does not bother any of the other fish in the tank: Solar wrasse, clowns, banggai or the one spot Foxface (I’m waiting on the Foxface police to show now too). That said, when I added the Foxface, the whitetail bristletooth started to chase but that quickly ended once the dorsal fin was extended.

Bummed about my diamond goby, he was one of my favorite fish - really cool personality. I was out of town for a few days and my wife mentioned she hadn’t seen him since I left. I asked her to look around the tank and he was on the carpet behind the tank. I could have sworn I looked around the tank when I finished cleaning - must’ve missed hIm. 3rd fish I’ve lost to jumping while cleaning in past 8 months. I even put a piece of plexiglass across the half of the tank I‘m not working on to minimize jumping out.

Here’s a pic of the tang. He has good color, but I didn’t do a water change for a while at one point and his color really muted - with regular water changes, his color is really nice.

 

[EagleEye121]

Yellow eye kole for me in a 110. Model citizen! Love watching him pick on the rocks all day.

 

[EagleEye121]

First tang I put in my display was a white tail. "Turbo" is the most active fish I have - never never stops moving. Sometimes I feel a 6 ft tank is not big enough LOL. He is not very long, but super fat. He needs to go on a diet, but can't stop him from picking everything all day. I used to wonder why I didn't have algae problems...

Amazing colors!!

 

[UtahReefer]

Just put in a tiny Golden bristle tooth yesterday. She's a little larger than a quarter. Cutest dang thing I've ever seen!

 

[52728299]

Tomini tang for me in a 100g. He's pretty well behaved but tank is pretty semi aggressive that no one in there's a push over. He was pretty small when I got him and he is in there with 2 dwarf angels a pearscale, a foxface, dottyback, 2 damsels, clowns etc.

 

[Keko21]

This is Tipsy. She’s a little bit of a bully and scraps with my goby for the same cave but other than that a model citizen.

 

[ClownSchool]

Small tank tangs: Have you kept a Bristletooth tang?

Maybe you have heard the legend of the tang police or even felt their wrath. Maybe you have wondered “What is the smallest tank for a tang?” Instead of focusing today on tang shaming or arguing about minimums, let’s talk about some Bristletooth tangs which are some of the smaller tangs which aren’t as demanding with their tank space requirements. What is your experience with Bristletooth tangs? Do you have a preference between Kole, Tomini, Chevron, or other tangs that fit into the Ctenochaetus genus? Please tell us about your experience with small tank tangs and share your thoughts in the discussion below.

Photo by @ReefChasers

BTW, I did meet a Tang Police officer at Reef-A-Palooza Texas this past year and she and her K9 were very gracious, but I definitely would not want to get on the bad side of either one of them!

My Blue Eye Tang is the boss of my RedSea Reefer 350 G2.

 

[Reef Altitude]

Love my yellow eye kole

Where do you get one these days though?? I have been trying to find one.

 

[Reefer Matt]

I have a ~5 y.o. purple tang in my 4 y.o. 75 gallon sps tank. It is only 3 ½ inches long. Definitely the tank boss.

 

[get-salty]

i have a chocolate mimic, blue eye bristletooth, and two in QT right now - one spot foxface and tenneti tang !

 

[Dbichler]

Where do you get one these days though?? I have been trying to find one.

I don’t think you can unless someone is breaking their tank down.

 

[Sandy MH]

Small tank tangs: Have you kept a Bristletooth tang?

Maybe you have heard the legend of the tang police or even felt their wrath. Maybe you have wondered “What is the smallest tank for a tang?” Instead of focusing today on tang shaming or arguing about minimums, let’s talk about some Bristletooth tangs which are some of the smaller tangs which aren’t as demanding with their tank space requirements. What is your experience with Bristletooth tangs? Do you have a preference between Kole, Tomini, Chevron, or other tangs that fit into the Ctenochaetus genus? Please tell us about your experience with small tank tangs and share your thoughts in the discussion below.

Photo by @ReefChasers

BTW, I did meet a Tang Police officer at Reef-A-Palooza Texas this past year and she and her K9 were very gracious, but I definitely would not want to get on the bad side of either one of them!

From a very naive fish killer (not proud of it), how small is too small -- I KNOW this is not the gist of the thread -- we have a WB 70 cube -- cruising room for the gang is about 38 gallons (24"x24"22") -- we'd love to do a kole or a taormini! Thank you for not laughing.

 

[bcurelop]

I have a tomini tang in my 50g. Unless it's feeding time he's very shy and hangs out near his hiding spot. He grazes, but he's quick to retreat. I can't seem to get him to eat any seaweed I put in the tank. He just doesn't seem interested.

I have one in my 45 gallon DT and he will not eat Nori but loves the algae wafers. You may want try those.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

From a very naive fish killer (not proud of it), how small is too small -- I KNOW this is not the gist of the thread -- we have a WB 70 cube -- cruising room for the gang is about 38 gallons (24"x24"22") -- we'd love to do a kole or a taormini! Thank you for not laughing.

In my opinion a 24” tank isn’t quite big enough. If I’m right the Tomini is the smaller of the two. But they do like to swim.