How do you keep fish from fighting?

[agrabow837]

i have a 90 gallon salt water with 100 lbs live sand and 75 lbs live rock. i have had a yellow tang and 2 clowns in there for about 6 months. Yesterday I added a small dog face puffer and a bi-color parrotfish. Everyone I talked to said the fish would be fine, but the tang is so aggressive towards the parrotfish. He keeps backing into him and swinging his fin at him. The parrotfish is scared and just hides between rock. What do I do? Will they calm down or do I just have an over agressive tang? The parrotfish is not harmed and has no scraps or bites yet ater day 1.

 

[nicetry]

Established yellow tangs are terrors to many newly added fish. With luck, the aggression will stop in a few days. If it persists, you may have to remove one of the fish. You can try some of the old stand-by tricks; re-arrange the rockwork to throw off the tang's territory. Leave the lights off for a day or so. Hang a small mirror on the outside of the tank and watch the tang divert it's attention to this instead of the parrotfish. Give it a few days to work itself out but if the parrot is being injured, decide who goes.

 

[imurnamine]

Yep.
That is why the Tang should ALWAYS be added last.

 

[agrabow837]

I love him - slippery pete - he has so much personality so I dont want to get rid of him, but he is a pest.

 

[fishguy56]

I would remove the tang a few days to tick him off since he is the bad boy!

 

[andreyv]

I had similar problem. I had Tomini in the tank for a little less than a month and added Coral Beauty
of the same size. Tang didn’t give CB a chance to get acclimated and chased
all over the tank until CB hid in the rocks. I waited for a week hoping that it will stop…
I can’t move the rock so I divided the tank with eggcrate (sp) in two parts.
Tang was in “prison” for 2 weeks. He was agitated every time CB came close to
divider for the first week. But day by day it was less and less. Two weeks was enough
for CB to get established – eating good and swimming everywhere. So I removed
the divider and keeping an eye on the tang. It’s been 2 weeks since then and everything
is good. Although Tomi is still chases LM Blenny. HTH

 

[rbrockm1]

just like kids you ground them for a 1wk and see what happens

 

[dragonzim]

I hope you realize that Parrotfish is going to get HUGE! They can grow up to 30 inches!!!!!

 

[sly]

I had a problem with agression back when I had only one yellow tang. So now I have 3 of them and they are completely peaceful. They seem to do better in small schools.