Yellow Tang Ferociously Attacking Copperband Butterfly

[roibenami]

Ok so I got a call from my friend a couple of days ago asking me if I want to take his copperband butterfly. He got it about a month ago and while he is eating frozen brine, he was getting skinny everyday.

My friend has a fish only system with copper in the water, so he had no natural prey to complete his diet, and my tank is currently swarming with small feather dusters (like all over the rocks and back glass, all the white dots in the pic)

Anyway, I always wanted one so I figured now would be as good time as any... After about 30 minute drip acclimation, I just netted him and dropped him in.

Almost immediately my yellow tang started going after it... tail slapping all the way. He would get him in a corner and just smash at him repeatedly.

So i knew I had to do something, I placed a huge mirror in front of the front glass. That worked for a couple of hours but after then he just ignored the mirror and went after the copperband.

I've went out and printed A4 pictures a yellow tang (a big, angry one) and taped 2 on my glass. 1 on the front panel and 1 on the side. Helped again for a couple of hours and then back to fighting the copperband.

I ended up making an egg crate barrier and partitioned my tank. The copperband is on one side and all the rest of the fish are with the yellow tang.

They have been like that for a few hours and still they are both flaring at each other. I was actually really surprised the copperband made it through, he took a severe beating and he tried to fight back.

He ate twice already, frozen brine (enriched + added vitamins) since then. And he really ate, like 20-30 pieces each time...

I'm going to give it a week and see how they are acting, anyone else been through that or have any Insight? that copperband is the prettiest fish I've got and I really want to keep him. Any tips on getting them to get along ??

thanks for the long read!

 

[Shaddow_wolf169]

Time! you should have put him in a acclimation box so they could get to know each other visually. Take the tang out for a week let the copperban adjust to the tank. Have your buddy watch the tang.

 

[eatbreakfast]

Just time at this point. By the end of the week they should be able to coexist. There may still be some displaying, but nothing serious.

If the aggression is bad once they are reintroduced, then 1 will need to be removed. If it comes to that, then I would strongly recommend keeping the copperband, because it is harder to get a good copperband than a good yellow tang.

 

[ngoodermuth]

Just time at this point. By the end of the week they should be able to coexist. There may still be some displaying, but nothing serious.

If the aggression is bad once they are reintroduced, then 1 will need to be removed. If it comes to that, then I would strongly recommend keeping the copperband, because it is harder to get a good copperband than a good yellow tang.

+1, you could always see if your LFS would let you trade your yellow tang for a different, smaller one.

 

[redfishbluefish]

I had a similar problem with a yellow tang and long nose yellow butterfly...that had been happy tank-mates for years. But all of a sudden the tang became aggressive towards the butterfly. I put a small mirror against the tank thinking the tang would be mis-directed to the new tang in the tank. Instead, the butterfly spent all it's time showing it's spiny dorsal fins to the image in the mirror. It was quite amusing.

Anyway, try a mirror against the tank.

 

[roibenami]

Just time at this point. By the end of the week they should be able to coexist. There may still be some displaying, but nothing serious.

If the aggression is bad once they are reintroduced, then 1 will need to be removed. If it comes to that, then I would strongly recommend keeping the copperband, because it is harder to get a good copperband than a good yellow tang.

I really hope you are right and they will get a long. I know yellow tangs are more common but I have this fish for almost 6 months now and let's just say I don't want to think about it if I don't have to.

I did notice today that the yellow tang aggression went down a little but they are both flaring most of the night... Which is wierd... They are both the same size (the yellow tang being a lot more bulky)

I tried to feed the copperband today with bloodworms, red plankton, lobster eggs (30mins apart). And he wouldn't touch anything.

Eventually I caved and fed brine, which he attacked and ate a ton of...

Slowly some of my smaller fish go through the other side so he gets to have a bit of them sometimes too.

The copperband is still not completely calm.. As he is swimming around a lot instead of grazing.. But I have patience..

Thx for the help!

 

[roibenami]

I had a similar problem with a yellow tang and long nose yellow butterfly...that had been happy tank-mates for years. But all of a sudden the tang became aggressive towards the butterfly. I put a small mirror against the tank thinking the tang would be mis-directed to the new tang in the tank. Instead, the butterfly spent all it's time showing it's spiny dorsal fins to the image in the mirror. It was quite amusing.

Anyway, try a mirror against the tank.

I did try a mirror at first. For 2 hours all of my fish were attacking the glass (didnt know they were all so aggressive) but after 2 hours the tang just went back to attacking the copperband.

I do however notice that the copperband does seem to flash a lot at his reflection in the side glass. Most of the fish I got did that for the first few days...

 

[roibenami]

UPDATE: So we're 4 days into the seperation. Aggression seemed to have calmed down for the most part but I still see some of that every once in a while : (was filmed yesterday)


The copperband butterfly was actually teasing the tang quite a bit, flaring at him through the eggcrate... But that usually doesn't happen anymore. The copperband is now a lot more calm and most of the time he is grazing the rocks and scaring off my cleaner wrasse who harasses him. I actually caught him eating a sweeper tentacle from my platygyre maze brain coral, but he spat it out so I hope he had enough of that...

The yellow tang is mostly calm but every now and then he's just aggressive towards everyone, scaring them away. but he never really hurts anyone...

I actually went to the LFS today to add another tang, I figured it would help disperse the aggression... But when I got there I just figured that 90 gallon of space is not enough for 2 tangs...

What do you guys think?

 

[MamaLovesHerReefTank]

Until the issue with aggression is resolved I would avoid adding another tang. Give it some more time.

 

[SamsReef]

How big is the tank. That plays a huge role whether aggression will be tolerable or not. If the tank is large (250 gallon plus), it always a good idea to introduce multiple fishes at the same time...the aggression gets divided.

Sam

 

[roibenami]

Until the issue with aggression is resolved I would avoid adding another tang. Give it some more time.

The question is, when do I know the aggression is resolved? When the flashing stops? or would I just have to remove the barrier after a week of separation and find out the hard way?

How big is the tank. That plays a huge role whether aggression will be tolerable or not. If the tank is large (250 gallon plus), it always a good idea to introduce multiple fishes at the same time...the aggression gets divided.

Sam

The display tank is 90 gallon, It's 55 by 16 by 25 (inches). As you can see in the picture, there's not a lot of rock and it's mostly open swimming space. but I still don't think it's enough for a group of tangs to disperse the aggression...

 

[stunreefer]

The question is, when do I know the aggression is resolved? When the flashing stops? or would I just have to remove the barrier after a week of separation and find out the hard way?

If aggression is going to stop, you'll notice flashing will subside over time while divided. Don't worry about leaving them divided for longer than a week; I've separated fishes for months as they ease into their new environment.

Keep feeding whatever the butterfly is eating consistently. After a week(ish) start mixing brine with other foods, especially feeding(s) early on in the day as that's when they'll be most hungry and begin to accept other food offerings.

 

[roibenami]

If aggression is going to stop, you'll notice flashing will subside over time while divided. Don't worry about leaving them divided for longer than a week; I've separated fishes for months as they ease into their new environment.

Keep feeding whatever the butterfly is eating consistently. After a week(ish) start mixing brine with other foods, especially feeding(s) early on in the day as that's when they'll be most hungry and begin to accept other food offerings.

Thanks for the reply... The copperband actually started eating mysis today... He spat out 50% of them but he ate a good 10 pieces at least...

That was the third meal today (first 2 were a mix of mysis and brine) plus I doubled the nori supply so now the yellow tang has nori available for about 80% of the day...

Right now it's night and the yellow tang is mostly a sleep in the corner but i've seen him take a few speed attacks towards the aggcrate trying to get the copperband... That is their fourth night together, third night seperated...

I'm actually nervous about leaving the eggcrate for long because the eggcrate is shadowing some of my corals and also it feels like the yellow tang doesn't have a lot of room...

 

[stunreefer]

I'm actually nervous about leaving the eggcrate for long because the eggcrate is shadowing some of my corals and also it feels like the yellow tang doesn't have a lot of room...

Corals will be fine in a bit of shade, remember it gets cloudy on reefs in nature during stormy weeks.

Not a lot of room is much better than giving them the chance to kill one another due to initial aggression.

Social acclimation done correctly will save many fishes lives. This MACNA talk from last year covers social acclimation thoroughly (49 minute mark).

 

[jdl513]

In my experience alpha Yellow tangs tend to be hyper aggressive when feels it's position as the boss is threatened. Simple separation and time likely won't fix this.

If it was me I would remove the yellow from the display completely for a few days. During that time rearrange some rock to reset the environment and let the CB settle in that environment. When the CB is feeding confidently then try reintroducing the yellow.

If the yellow resumes aggression don't see any choice but the rehome one of them.

 

[roibenami]

Argh... 5th day and the yellow tang spends most of the day (and night) attacking the copperband through the eggcrate...

I'm really not sure more time would help and I really don't have the mental capacity to keep the tank like that for weeks only to have to rehome one of them...

I'm seriously contemplating returning the yellow tang to the LFS and getting a smaller one... Would have to remove that whole left rock to do it. But since my aquascape is only 2 large fake rocks it shouldn't be too hard... Really breaks my heart to do it but ever since I got that copperband the yellow tang is just too aggressive...

 

[SamsReef]

One more thing to consider..if you have a good LFS friend, he/she might swap the yellow tang for you.

 

[roibenami]

UPDATE: yea so things arn't looking better. The yellow tang is mostly aggressive at night (I think because I don't have a lot of hiding places). And last night he started attacking everyone in his side... The melanarus, the blenny, the cardinals, the chromis, thr goby... Everyone. (btw, the melanarus wrasse was having none of that)

It's like the tang tries to attack the copperband, and when he can't he just takes it out on whoever is near him.

The same happens with my small dog (maltese) that sometimes really attacks my bigger dog (french mastiff) when he is barking at something on the other side of the fence... All of that aggression has to disperse somewhere...

Anyway, it was really bad on the cardinals (they were floating at the top most of the night untill I eventually put a mirror)

I think I'm getting him out today... I really loved that fish but after I got the copperband he had just been a terror.

Obviously these are animals and however they act is my responsibility and I should have done better research to avoid it...

I do have a friend that is willing to swap the yellow tang for a smaller one... I think that is what I want to do...

Thanks everyone for all your comments you've been a great help!

 

[roibenami]

Just thought I'd give an update... So I returned the original yellow tang to the LFS and got a new one... the new one was super skinny, quite transparent in the face and you could see through his body... also he had some torned up fins... Anyways, that was the only one they had and I got him..

After a week in my tank he was healing very quickly... he got most of his color back and the fins started to heal... but the problem was, he was also bullying the copperband... It would happen mostly at night but the agression was only becoming worse every day... to a point that my copperband was just swimming in the corner because the yellow tang would always chase him...

So I caught the new yellow tang, gave him back to the LFS (a different one, more capable of keeping him healthy and finding him a new home...). No more tangs for me... If I wanted to see aggression all day I would have gotten a shark tank.

I'm thinking about possibly a lawnmower blenny or some mollies... because algae is starting to grow and there's no one to eat it...

 

[ngoodermuth]

What about a tomini or kole tang, they are smaller but a bit less aggressive. Also chocolate mimic tang, and convict tang are supposed to be a little more docile as well.

My current kole is a little more boisterous than ones I've owned previously, but he isn't that bad.