our tang family

Good evening,
Hoping for some advice on the following. We have had the following fish in our 55 gallon reef tank for approximately 9 months:
sailfin tang
black percula
green chromis
royal gamma
firefish
diamond goby
This evening at the fish store we purchased a purple tang and a clown tang. We've been doing some reading and our now worried that these tangs may no co-exist too well together. We picked these two new fish tonight since they were in the same tank for approximately one week. We are just worried about what we have been reading in regards to the clown tang. Please advise.....
 

deejeff442

Active Member
thats the problem with lfs.they will sell you anything.
guess i cannot blame them these days.
i would move the rocks around in the tank and see what happens.
worst thing is you have to take them back.
i have had 4 tangs together in a 90 gallon all got along fine.
now i have a 150 and plan on adding a couple more to my purple.
good luck.
 

spiderwoman

Active Member
Good luck!
None of the Tangs belong to a 55 gallon tank... not even alone. Please research the fish before you purchase them and don't trust your LFS in anything that is going to benefit him $$$. That is the best advice I can give you. Please take the Purple tang back...
 

-tara33-

Member
i work at a 'LFS' and i would never recomend to keep even one tang in a 55, take the fish back for their sake a purple tang is very aggresive once established, a sailfin gets huge and the clowns are very hard to get to adapt to captivitty and hard to get to feed, and eight fish is alot for the bioload on a nine month old tank, please dont trust this fish store again on advise, stick to what people on this forum tell you and good luck for future fish keeping.
 

shaggyblz

Member
I have 2 tangs in my 110g, along with my other fish, and would think that I was close to my limit (bioload limit). Probably wouldn't keep more than 1 tang in a 55g.
 
We just went back to the store and return the clown tang for a kole tang....we are going to see what happens and do not plan on adding any other livestock to this tank. If the fish get too big or appear stressed we will bring them back.
 

deejeff442

Active Member
Sorry I Missed The Part Where He Said It Was Only A 55 Gallon.
I Thought I Was Pushing The Limit With My Old 90 Gallon Having A Foxface And Purple In It.i Want To Add Two More Tangs And Have My Eye On A 220 Gallon.
 
Yah...I have to say that considering this was my first time asking for advice and all I've received is sarcasm and some severe tone violation, I doubt I will be coming back to the forum again. Thanks for your help.....
 
as for deejeff422, thanks for your advice. I did just that...i shut the lights and moved some rock around and my sailfin (about 3 inches) is swimming and playing with the purple tang (about 2 inches). the sailfin had been in the tank for about 9 months already and didn't act agressive at all towards the purple. Let's see what happens and hey, it could be a reason to upgrade...third time is a charm!
 

-tara33-

Member
i think the avatar might be the tank but i still hope you do get the most out of the hobby and hopefully you do diside to upgrade, but its good you took the clown back, but it is still three tangs in a 55, but they are small so they should be ok for now, but definently think about upgradeing to larger asap.
 

-tara33-

Member
also can you take single pics of the purple tang, i am thinking of getting one but i rarly see them small, they always come in as adults, thankx
 
we're working on getting the pics resized right now...we bought the sailfin at one inch...we bought all the fish as babies
 

-tara33-

Member
wow ive never seen a 1 inch sailfin before thats so cute, take a pic of it to, i didnt know you could get them that small, ive never seen them on the wholesalers stocklist that small before
 
Top