Yellow tangs bickering

[ca1ore]

Best answer is to remove one of the yellows. All the other suggestions here may work, but they also may not. Given the timeline of the behavior change, you may also need to consider that your tank is too small for the bigger one. I had something similar happen with two hippos in a 180; they were fine when small, but as they got bigger they became increasingly unhappy with each other to the point that I had to rehome one of them. Still have the one today (he's 7" now).

 

[mdrobc13]

Tried the same with a nice 4" Powder Brown Tang last week...my clown tang (smaller) harassed the acclimation box for 48 hrs as did my larger Sailfin tang off and on. Day 3 they left him alone for most of the day. No interests.. lull before the store. I released him later than night of day 4 and woke up to feed everyone before going to work to find the Powder Brown dead on the bottom of the tank wedged under a rock formation base! Not sure who got him but suspect it was the Clown AND the Sailfin in the dark while I was sleeping. I had 3 Yellow tangs who I introduced together and now have 2 left due to attrition/death of smaller one and they didn't bother the Powder Brown one bit. Added a Purple Tang and Sailfin at same time and they totally ignore everything else in the tank. My Clown tang (3") was added with a Powder Blue Tang who I had in QT for 6 weeks to make sure ich was not a factor and they did fine. No other tangs bothered them and they didn't bother anyone other the the PBT who for some reason wouldn't tolerate a Majestic Angel nor a Flame I put in the tank. He seemed to go haywire over any later additions and ended up succumbing to ich which I believed came back due to his constant state of worry about almost any other fish added after him. Funny thing tho is I added very large Naso with streamers and everyone left him alone also.

Latest addition was an adult Angularis Angel to go with my Blueface Angel and no one bothers him either...he's about 5" adult (med). Will add another large/med Powder Brown next week and a small Scopa Tang (to disperse his arrival with the others) and call it done for stocking once my Foxface and Vlamingi Tang get out of QT in 2 weeks. Funny thing about tangs is some will be okay...some will just hate on all other fish added afterwards. PBT and some of the Zebramosa are like that. It can be planning or it can be luck of the draw.

 

[mdrobc13]

That’s a thought.. NYA has Yellows in sale for $29 and Purples for $49. I live an hour from them..

God at those prices I would have you buy one and ship one to me! Where is this? LFS in my area Purples are $149 and up worst price being $199 for any size!