Tang in a 100g

[cvonseggern]

Seems the consensus on another board I frequent is that any tang needs a large tank to thrive. I'm wondering what all of you learned souls think of a tang, probably a purple, in a 5' 100g? I really, really want one once the tank matures and I've got the other fish we want, but not if it's a death sentence. What do you all think?

[GaryP]

A 100 gal. is not exactly small. You should be able to keep a couple of them in that size tank. That would also depend on what else you are planning on putting in there.

Gary

[pilot_bell777]

I have a purple that thrives in my 75 gal that is 4 foot long. The water volume is not as important as the length of the tank when talking about this. There are a lot of tangs that I wouldn't keep becuase my tank isn't long enough for them. They like to have plenty of room to swim. If you have a 100 gallon tank that was 2 foot long but was very tall, that probably would't be a good tank for a tang, but if you had a 100 gallon tank that was 6 foot long, that would be great. Water volume is important when figuring out how many fish to keep, but when you see post referr to size for a tang they are usually talking about swimming space. My purple does fine in my 75 gal that is 4 foot long. Of course I am a reefer head so by the time that he grows to full grown, I will probably already be at a 180 gallon tank! LOL

This is just in my opinion and I am sure that you can find 100 people (in a 5 foot area) that will argue with me, but that is what I love about this hobby, everyone hsa their own opinion!

In my 75 I have (and they are all thriving) 2 Chromis, 1 Flame Angel, 1 Purple Tang, and 1 Large marron Clown, 2 cleaner shrimp, 1 fire shrimp, 2 brittle star fish, 6 margartia snails, 6 nassur.. snails, 2 fighting conches, 3 turbo snails, 6 astashia snails, and 3 hermit crabs, 100 lbs of sand, and probably 150 - 200 lbs of Live rock, and a ton of corals......and not planning on adding anything else.

and my motto: If God had wanted me to spell, he wouldn't have invented spell checker!

[Sherri]

I have a small yellow tang and a medium regal tang in my 100 gal which is 5 ft.....no problem...the regal has plenty of "running" room...wouldn't go that much smaller in length tho

[georgeortiz]

My yellow tang has done great in my 110. I agree with sherri don't keep them in a much smaller tank.

[witecap4u]

Im running a 100g with 3 tangs; a purple, yellow and a scopas. They are all doing great, the yellow and scopas like to swim in the open water while the purple likes to cruise along the rockwork. Like everyone else said, there are lots of tang/surgeons that shouldnt be kept in a 5ft tank, but a purple tang should be fine. Something to keep in mind with the purple tang is that they tend to be agressive toward new tankmate, especially other tangs, so he should be one of the last additions to the tank, and added at the same time as any other tang you want to keep.

For the record, my tank is the home to three tangs listed above, a niger trigger, flame hawk, bicolor blenny, and a pair of gold striped maroons.

cs

cs

[Instar]

I have a group of tangs in my 75 (3 yellow and 1 purple). They have over 8 feet of linear swimming distance because the rocks are large and provide swiming down the front, down the sides and across the back. Rocks are verticle and in the middle. Started with very small tangs and have had them for over 3 years now. They are fat and happy. I don't have as many in my 100 gallon tank because the linear swimming distance and useable water volume is less due to the way the rocks are set up. And they are hiders, the bule hippos. They were small last year but they are growing like weeds. I would use small tangs and consider the environment and how you build it. If you want a Naso it needs to have lots of linear swimming and you can make over 12 feet of that in a good sized 6 foot tank depending on how you build the rocks up.

[captexas]

My educated guess is you are talking about Reef Central and the tang police/bullies. I have a 75g tank and have a blue/regal tang along with a naso tang. Of course they are still small at this time. There is no way I would keep two fish that get to be up to 12in. and 18in. respectively, when they are full grown in a 75g tank. They will be going into my 240 once I get it up and going so they will have plenty of swimming space. Not all tangs get that big and I think you will be just fine with your 100g for a purple. The biggest problem you will probably have is that a purple and even some yellows can be very aggressive towards other tankmates.

[Reef69]

I have a regal in a 90 gal. and he is doing very well..he is still small aswell..he shares the tank with a royal gramma, 2 fire fish, 1 six line wrasse, 3 black and white ocellaris, 2 true perculas, 2 cleaner shrimps and a coral banded shrimp, a ton of corals and snails..not planing to add any more fish, but he does very well.

[MikeP]

Bristle tooth tangs (Chevron, Tomini, Kole) all stay fairly small and are good all purpose hebivores also. Might want to look into that. I would never keep any Acanthurus sp. in a 4' tank for too long - for example the Sohal in the wild can get to 18" and lives in high energy reef crest environments with lots of swimming room, strong currents and dissolved oxygen. I have 2 tangs (Regal and Powder Brown) in my 215 which is 6'. I fully expect in a few years to get them a larger tank on the order of 10' or so.

Yes fish can live in a smaller tank but it is not optimal for the health of the fish - especially large active fishes like tangs which need abundant swimming room.

[dan]

in my tank i have 4 yellows, 1 purple and a big powder blue. all are doing fine together. remember they eat like pigs, and they like different foods.

[Bucky-Katt]

I'll go ahead and jump into this as well. I have a 90 gallon tank with a 3"-3 1/2" Purple tang that I have had for almost a year. My rock work is pretty open. i have lots of "tunnels" and such that give some nice swimming lanes for him, i also have my rock in a similar structure to Instar with the big island in the middle of my tank. I have him in the tank with a flame angel, a black and white clown, a royal gramma, a 4 stripe damsel, a 3 stripe damsel and 2 yellow tail blue damsels. On Monday I added a 3"-3 1/2" Powder Blue tang. It was a purchase I debated over, I went ahead and bought him since he was the same size (more or less) as my purple, and with the knowledge that I will be moving everyone into a new 215 gallon Reef Ready tank in 4 to 6 months (I'm currently in the planning stages).

they are doing pretty well together. I did a re-arrangement on the tank yesterday and that seemed to settle down the sparring, for lack of a better term, that was going on. ;)

Brian