Tang question

[ou812pezz]

I bought a yellow tang last December. I added him to a community of damsels and a clown fish. I just added a small Hippo Tang today. I want to add a sailfin tang soon. The question is, will I have a problem adding a sailfin now that I've had a yellow in the tank for 2 months?

[Reef69]

Yeah...and, watch the yellow tang beat the breaks out of the small hippo over night..

[ou812pezz]

Would it be wise to move the yellow to another tank for awhile and then move him back at a later time?

[Reef69]

no, Yellow tangs are very aggressive, and should be the last fish added..so not much is going to change. Not to scare you but i think your hippo is gone if you leave him with a yellow tang, hippos are peeaceful tangs..Just my humble and ignorant 2 cents.

[Richard]

I would just watch the yellow and hippo before moving them. Yellows can get pretty aggressive when they are the established tang but I had never had a problem putting hippos in with them. I'm not saying he won't pick on the hippo just that he may not.

I'm pretty sure your yellow would pick on a new sailfin since they are similar species so you probably should try to get a sailfin that is much larger than the yellow if you want to add one.

[Reef69]

Yeah, Richard would be the person to ask about fish. He's 100% right. I guess its hit and miss, but odds are the yellow might be aggressive towards the small hippo. And as far as the sailfin goes..no go IMO.

[LoneStar]

My yellow and regal tangs get along great. The yellow was added last though... plus the regal is schooling with my green chromis so that may be a reason why the yellow does not pick on it. Tougher to beat up someone when he has 6 fishes backing him up :lol

[duc]

My yellow tang was in the tank as the only tang for over 6mo's and then I added a 50cent size hippo and they get a long just fine. Now it may not be the norm but it does happen, I did watch them a lot in the beginning and still keep an eye on them.
Clif

[leslie]

I too added a hippo ( size of .50 piece) after my yellow and have not had any problems.

[scuba_steveo]

I have a few tangs. I added all but one at the same time. I already had a red sea sailfin in another established tank that was a little mean so I wanted to add him last. All went pretty well. I had made my wish list and FA told me they could order everything on my list except for the orange shoulder tang. I added, 3 yellow, 2 purple, 2 hippos, 1 powder blue, 1, powder brown, and 1 achilles all at the same time. Then a few days later I added my red sea sailfin from the other tank. The only one that I lost was one purple about a month or two later. The orange shoulder was finally available about a month later so I figured I would give him a try. He went in and one second later he was sliced all over. So he lived in the fuge for a while until mikeyboy took him. The sailfin is the boss for sure, and then the achilles, then the others all fall behind. IMO, you should not add a tang to a tank that has other established tangs of the same body type unless the one you are adding is bigger than the others.