Why is my mimic tang doing this?

[findingsimple]

Added a flame hawkfish to my tank and my little mimic tang keeps sidling up to it (even in the caves) and then the flame hawkfish gets ticked off and attacks it.

The tang just takes the beating!? Why?

Sometimes it swims up the hawkfish on purpose and then plays dead

 

[findingsimple]

The tang used to do its things and swim around with the clowns. Now it just tries to skim around the rocks like the hawkfish. Does it mimic that much? Lol

 

[nereefpat]

That behavior is a tang being submissive.

Hopefully, the hawk will be nice and let the tang recover from the injuries. Feed well and keep the water quality up.

 

[findingsimple]

Thank you @nereefpat that's good to know.

Hopefully, the hawk will be nice and let the tang recover from the injuries. Feed well and keep the water quality up.

I really don't want to lose the tang.

 

[findingsimple]

I’ve separated the hawkfish to it’s own tank for now to give the tang a break.

I’ll reintroduce once I’ve got an acclimation box and the tang is a bit bigger and healed up.

 

[findingsimple]

The tang is already visibly less stressed and back to exploring the rock work.

For the size of tank and amount of rock/caves I’m surprised they couldn’t find some harmony