Aggressive Tang *Please help*

J

Jarretk1

Premium Member
I have a 90 gallon tank with tons of rock so lots of hiding places for any tang. I had 2 clowns and a spotted indian bristletooth tang that is roughly 4 inches or so for around 2 months now. After adding a trigger and an orange fin tomino tang roughly a week ago it has been nonstop aggression from the larger indian tang. The indian tang is extremely shy and always stuck to 1 side of the tank but since adding the new one he will go from one end of the tank to the other just to pounce on the orange fin. I made sure I had 2 feeding clips and lots of hiding spots for the smaller orange fin but nothing would calm the indian down after 3-4 days. Now I have tried blowing up a picture of the indian bristletooth and taping it to the tank and also adding a mirror. In some ways I think it has calmed the indian tang down but he is still attacking the orange fin and I am totally out of ideas. If he doesn't calm down in the the next 24 hours with the mirror or picture I am going to have to pull one out. I am not really attached to either and I dont know which one to pull if it comes down to that. Im worried that if I pull the orange fin the indian tang will be aggressive to any new fish. Sorry for running on but I guess to summarize I wondered if anyone had any new ideas or thoughts of what I should do.
 
Aggression is probably increased due to the fact that both of them are Ctenochaetus tangs coupled with the fact that the first tang has had two months to claim the tank as his territory thus not happy about the new addition. You might be able to re-arrange rock work to "change" things up about the territory or temporarily remove the original tang for a few days and then put him back in. The thought process behind either is that neither fish has claimed the territory. Alternatively remove either fish and get a tang other than a Ctenochaetus.
 
Well since you have already introduced them, the new tang is basically always going to beat the other tang up. vrba gave you a good idea about changing the rock work, but I have tried that in the past after I already introduced them and it didn't work for me. They aggressor already had the other tangs number. At this point if vrba's idea doesn't work for you, you will have two options. Wait to see if they stop attacking each other, or remove one from the tank. From what you have descibed, if you leave it in there it will most likely die due to the wounds and or stress. The more I think about it, I would remove the tang.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top