Tangs super aggressive to yellow fish!

[AlesandroC]

Hi all, I just bought a Bicolour along with a Leopard wrasse and Canary/banana wrasse

Tangs absolutely went at the bicolour to the point where I had to remove him, they were all QT just fine

I had to take the Bicolour out as it was getting ganged up on really badly

The Canary wrasse is still there and whenever it shows itself it gets destroyed, and goes back to hiding. I don’t know what to do

The leopard wrasse is completely untouched, they don’t seem to like the yellow fish? Please let me know

Is there anything I can do?

 

[edsbeaker]

Hi all, I just bought a Bicolour along with a Leopard wrasse and Canary/banana wrasse

Tangs absolutely went at the bicolour to the point where I had to remove him, they were all QT just fine

I had to take the Bicolour out as it was getting ganged up on really badly

The Canary wrasse is still there and whenever it shows itself it gets destroyed, and goes back to hiding. I don’t know what to do

The leopard wrasse is completely untouched, they don’t seem to like the yellow fish? Please let me know

Is there anything I can do?

You wrote Tangs. Are there more than one attacking the new fish? What kind of tang/tangs? How big is the tank? If you have multiple tangs doing the attacking, it’s going to be a difficult fix.

Provided the tank is large enough for the tang/tangs

1. You could try and move around your rock work so that the tang no longer has his established territory.

2. You can capture the tang and isolate him in a separate tank for a couple of weeks, then reintroduce him and see if the aggression is better.

3. You can try to put the new fish into an acclimation box/boxes for a couple of weeks to give them time to settle into the display tank and begin feeding and hope that the tang gets used to them being there.

 

[AlesandroC]

Hi, thanks for the reply

I have 3 tangs:
-Sailfin
-Bristle tooth
- Powder Brown

As soon as I put the bicolour angel in, as well as the banana wrasse, the bristle tooth and powder brown went CRAZY on them.

I just put a mirror in and they aren’t very fond of their doppelgängers :D

The banana wrasse has still not come out of hiding after the crazy aggression

Rearranging rock work is very tough, can’t really do that right now…

 

[AlesandroC]

The tank size is 80 gallons, lots of rock work for them as well

 

[Borat]

To start with - your tank is way too small for sailfin and powder blue tangs.. so maybe a better idea to rehome them. You can replace these 2 tangs with small ones: yellow, silver spot or tomini.

Then in terms of aggression - you should try the mirror trick to distract your existing fish. You may need the keep the mirror for a few days. Mirror can be fixed to the glass using strong sticky tape (gorilla tape).

 

[AlesandroC]

To start with - your tank is way too small for sailfin and powder blue tangs.. so maybe a better idea to rehome them. You can replace these 2 tangs with small ones: yellow, silver spot or tomini.

Then in terms of aggression - you should try the mirror trick to distract your existing fish. You may need the keep the mirror for a few days. Mirror can be fixed to the glass using strong sticky tape (gorilla tape).

We

To start with - your tank is way too small for sailfin and powder blue tangs.. so maybe a better idea to rehome them. You can replace these 2 tangs with small ones: yellow, silver spot or tomini.

Then in terms of aggression - you should try the mirror trick to distract your existing fish. You may need the keep the mirror for a few days. Mirror can be fixed to the glass using strong sticky tape (gorilla tape).

Well, I have a 400 gallon, all the tangs in this tang are Juvenile, perhaps slightly past juvenile

I have never encountered aggression like this before, especially tangs aggression to wrasses

 

[Borat]

We

Well, I have a 400 gallon, all the tangs in this tang are Juvenile, perhaps slightly past juvenile

I have never encountered aggression like this before, especially tangs aggression to wrasses

They are territorial and I have experieced the same for both wrasse and copperband. It's temporary though - just get them distracted using the mirror.

 

[AlesandroC]

How many days would you reccomend me keeping the mirror up?

Thanks for all the replies everyone!

 

[Borat]

How many days would you reccomend me keeping the mirror up?

Thanks for all the replies everyone!

I normally put the mirror for a day, then take it off and observe. If the problem is mainly gone, then that's fine, otherwise I would add the mirror again. Perhaps up to 3 days in a row is max that's required.

 

[vetteguy53081]

You wrote Tangs. Are there more than one attacking the new fish? What kind of tang/tangs? How big is the tank? If you have multiple tangs doing the attacking, it’s going to be a difficult fix.

Provided the tank is large enough for the tang/tangs

1. You could try and move around your rock work so that the tang no longer has his established territory.

2. You can capture the tang and isolate him in a separate tank for a couple of weeks, then reintroduce him and see if the aggression is better.

3. You can try to put the new fish into an acclimation box/boxes for a couple of weeks to give them time to settle into the display tank and begin feeding and hope that the tang gets used to them being there.

Having 26 tangs, this is a typical behavior and the most un-inviting I see are sohal, yellow, sailfin, powder blue and lavender. Moving rocks rarely works and even with a 10ft tank, I see the fish occasionally switching areas to claim as their own. Ive had to place fish such as my purple tang in the sump for 2 months to settle it down and it goes back to its devil tactics but now has gotten better. Acclimation boxes dont do much and are often a temporary fix or alternative- not solution.