Mixing SurgeonFish (1 Viewer)

[Wildfire]

I've got a Purple Tang in my 265. I am considering (really REALLY hard) adding 3 regal blue tangs into the tank. The new tangs are TINY (the babies that Kenny has at AC), and I'm worried that they might get the slime-covered snot beaten out of them....

Anyone else have different surgeonfish types (genus) in a tank successfully?

TIA

 

[tvu]

i have a naso, blue and yellow tang together. Yellow first, Naso second and blue in that order.

From what i've read, purple tangs can be very aggressive toward other tangs. You go have a very large tank though. Hopefully someone else can help you out.

 

[dfimble]

I say go for it. I have a sailfin and 3 blues. No fighting at all.

I have tried to add a shoel of yellows before any the sailfin did not treat them very kindly.

David

 

[chadhender]

I started with a purple tang (4-5") then added a huge red sea sailfin (6-7") in a 120 the purple kicked it around for about a month. Now they tolerate each other. The Sailfin will be moving to a 200 if it allows me to catch it! I think you might need to get tangs bigger than the purple. If mine was not the size it is it would have died.

 

[t0mmy108]

I have Red Sea Sohal Tang, Chevron Tang, Purple Tang, two Yellow Tangs, and a teen Regal Tang. All live happilly together......even when I put the Nori in, they don't fight over the food. I have a fish whip and I reach in the tank and crack it if they're bad. jk.

 

[Guest]

TANG POLICE!!!! woooowoooowoooo. :mrgreen:

Now, that's a lot of tangs in one tank. It is gorgeous, though.

I love tangs and have a couple myself in my 180 gallon.... a lemonpeel mimic tang and a scopas. I have had purples before, and know from experience that established purples do not take new tangs in the tank kindly. I like your descriptive phaseology... "the slime-covered snot beaten out of them....," and I worry that you may be correct.

If there is any way, you may want to remove the purple to a quarantine setup for about a week while the blues are getting settled. Then when you reintroduce the purple it will have to reacclimate itself to the reef and you should have less chance of hostility.

Good luck...

Jim

 

[Guest]

wildfire-
you can put blue tangs in with a purple tang with little or no problems at all.The first thing you are going to need to do is fatten these little guys up!I would suggest putting them in a smaller aquarium at first with good flow and some branching coral of some type.They sleep in coral branches at night and during the day play in the currents looking for zooplankton.You will need to feed these little guys as much as you can without polluting the water.We feed ours minced up frozen of different variety and cyclopeeze that has been enriched.If you put them in that big tank they could very easily disappear!We actually bought ten of them from the same batch and they are doing really well.We feed them a little every other hour just to keep them from focusing aggression on each other.I would grow them to about 2" before trying your luck in the big tank.

 

[t0mmy108]

what is said about the purple tangs is very true. These guys had to be meticulously introduced into the tank in a specific sequence. The purple tang and the sohal tang are the most agressive. I placed my blue tang, yellow tangs and Chevron Tang first. In the meantime, the purple tang who had come from my old 72 boe front was in quarantine. He had killed three other BIGGER yellow tangs when he was only a teenager. Make sure the other more timid ones are well acclimated to the tank before adding the purple. It helps when he is brand new to the environment. One week after the purple tang went in, The sohal was brought home (I've always wanted one of those.) I feed them very well to keep them happy. I still watch them very carefully as they can always change with age. "I want to be KING OF THE REEF" attitude sets in. Good Luck!

Check out my new NANO tank!! Just finished today!

 

[Guest]

Look, If you try to introduce purple tangs in with fish from the same genus(Zebrasoma) they will generally squabble.Not always, but most of the time.If you introduce Zebrasoma with the genus Paracanthurus(blue tang) they will be fine.I have kept these fish together on numerous occasions and had no problems.They seemed to take no notice of each other most of the time and when the purple was having a bad day and trying to bully ALL of the fish in the tank around, you better believe that the blue tang stands its ground and will defend itself.Fatten up the baby blues, grow them to about 2" to 3" and you are golden. Even if your purple gets pissy they wont be able to catch a blue because of their remarkably fast swimming and navigation through rock work.