Tang in a 55 gallon? Vote!

Can a Yellow Tang live in a 55 gallon aquarium permanently?


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Gumbies R Us

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I feed tangs strawberries lol

tempImageyRK9cI.png
Had no clue you could feed them strawberries like that haha
 

Matt1997

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Standard 55 I would say yes to one. My 55 will certainly have a tang or two. Mine is a little different than most.
 

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Gumbies R Us

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Not in excess. They get one every 2-3 weeks. Same with bananas and kiwis. Basically different treat a week for them and not really too much all at once.
Huh, interesting. I don't know too much about tangs so I thought it was funny how there was just this big strawberry being hand fed to a tang haha
 

Eagle_Steve

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Huh, interesting. I don't know too much about tangs so I thought it was funny how there was just this big strawberry being hand fed to a tang haha
I have dove all over the world and noticed that some guides carry fruits to get the tangs to come up to the group of divers. So just tried it at home after a trip and kept doing it lol. Figured if they would come up to a group of divers for some fruit, that means they really like it.
 

cdw79

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It totally depends on the open water, lateral space in the tank. Here is a link to an article I posted on this topic:


Jay
This was a great read! Only thing I wasn't sure about was the proper measuring technique. Say a scape starts from 3/4 of the heigh of the tank and continues downwards at a 45 degree angle (just making things up here), how does one go about measuring the width of the tank? In theory the width is as high as the width of the tank, because in the top quarter of the tank nothing is there, or as little as only a handful of inches toward the bottom of the tank where the rockwork might be quite close to the front glass. What would be the "proper" measurement of the width in that case? Thanks for the writeup, it was very informative!
 

Jay Hemdal

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This was a great read! Only thing I wasn't sure about was the proper measuring technique. Say a scape starts from 3/4 of the heigh of the tank and continues downwards at a 45 degree angle (just making things up here), how does one go about measuring the width of the tank? In theory the width is as high as the width of the tank, because in the top quarter of the tank nothing is there, or as little as only a handful of inches toward the bottom of the tank where the rockwork might be quite close to the front glass. What would be the "proper" measurement of the width in that case? Thanks for the writeup, it was very informative!

Yes - you need to do some estimating in order to calculate the swimming area in some tanks, depending on how they are aquascaped. In the 45 degree angle scenario, I would measure the open water width 1/2 of the way down and use that value.

Jay
 

Lavey29

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Think you are in the wrong hobby also as mentioned in previous posts they only roam that too find food which they get provided for them they do not do it for fun
Sorry just don't agree cramming a large free swimming fish into an undersized tank is being a responsible reefer. Far more die off that we don't hear about then last long term in the tank. Telling the OP everything will be fine is just wrong and bad info as evidenced by the majority no vote. A 4 ft minimum width tank may work but 6 ft would be more ideal.
 

Dave1993

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Sorry just don't agree cramming a large free swimming fish into an undersized tank is being a responsible reefer. Far more die off that we don't hear about then last long term in the tank. Telling the OP everything will be fine is just wrong and bad info as evidenced by the majority no vote. A 4 ft minimum width tank may work but 6 ft would be more ideal.


no 1 can provide 150 feet off territory in the home maybe a sea life centre but you saying no 1 should keep tangs as no 1 can provide that yes i agree 55 is a bit cramped but you are saying NO 1 should keep them as it is impossible for everyone bar 0.00001% of people to provide them
 
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Jay Hemdal

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Swimming space is difficult to calculate with fish. Case in point - schooling fish in a cylinder tank can swim continuously without reaching a tank wall. In essence then, the 4' diameter tank is essentially infinite. The same applies to any aquarium, to a lesser degree. Watch a fish zig and zag around corals as it swims across the reef in the wild. How is that any different than a fish that has to navigate tank walls in an aquarium?

If the fish is not developing rub marks or other deformities, there is no physical metric as to if the tank is "too small" or not. Saying it "isn't happy" is based on your feelings, and may or may not be valid.

Jay
 

Lavey29

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no 1 can provide 150 feet off territory in the home maybe a sea life centre but you saying no 1 should keep tangs as no 1 can provide that yes i agree 55 is a bit cramped but you are saying NO 1 should keep them as it is impossible for everyone bar 0.00001% of people to provide them
What's the vote count?
 
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JPM San Diego

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I am a big fan of objective data. Jay Hemdal's article, noted above, is the best I've seen on this subject.
I've updated my Excel file, based on this article, to make it easier to read.
On the brief version worksheet I've preloaded standard measurements for a 55 gallon tank.
I've highlighted the results in yellow for a Yellow tang.
 

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Lavey29

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1 yellow tang in a 55g is fine.
Mine, 5 years old, didn’t grow past 4”.
Not agressive at all, but is a super rock cleaner.

2C76C5A1-D2D0-4FA5-ACC9-9FF896AE7D3A.jpeg
I'm not going to deny there are successful undersized tanks that have kept a tang previously but at what cost? How many dozens upon dozens don't survive in the environment? We really don't no the actual number but a lot of us have seen the posts where soccer mom and baseball dad buy the 20g freshwater tank and the blue hippo tang to go with it. Why? Because a few probably very experienced reefers have been successful and told them it can be done, keep him for a year or two. Etc... I'm not just blindly stating this. I got a white tail bristletooth for my 65g early on. He looked stressed and nervous the first week and I assumed it was just new tank acclimation stress. He did the same thing the second week and I had plenty of rock for him to dart around and peck. Third week his color went pail and his frantic behavior slowed down then he passed away. My Fish vendor told me he would be fine in my 3 ft tank and that was just false sales info. That fish died from the stress of the undersized environment he was in. Now, perhaps tank bred fish might be easier then wild caught to acclimate but overall those type of fish just need a lot of lateral swimming space in a 6 ft wide tank.
 

Jay Hemdal

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I am a big fan of objective data. Jay Hemdal's article, noted above, is the best I've seen on this subject.
I've updated my Excel file, based on this article, to make it easier to read.
On the brief version worksheet I've preloaded standard measurements for a 55 gallon tank.
I've highlighted the results in yellow for a Yellow tang.

Very cool - I never tried putting that into a spreadsheet with formulas. I did see that I would have handled the full adult size of a YT differently, using 80% of the Fishbase size, it changes to 7.2" Then, a 55 gallon is *just* large enough if it is mostly open space. I tried the same thing with the purple tang and I see that the 80% of the Fishbase sizes for that species are messed up - 16.5" maximum and 3.6" typical? This is where Fishbase can be tough to use. The entries are often computer generated and there is limited human error checking. IMO, purple tangs grow just a bit larger than YT in captivity, so both of the Fishbase values seem incorrect for purple tang.

Jay
 

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