jthomas0385
Member
Would a 55 gallon tank be to small for yellow or blue tangs?
tangs
- Thread starter jthomas0385
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m0nk
Active Member
Originally Posted by JThomas0385
Would a 55 gallon tank be to small for yellow or blue tangs?
Short answer is yes.
Long answer is yes, with certain exceptions. A yellow tang will get territorial very quickly in such a small tank, they should be in nothing less than a 90+ gallon imo. They don't get extremely big, but they are open ocean swimmers and should have room to swim, but the territorial behavior is a bigger issue in a smaller tank. A blue tang will get to be about 1 ft long, which is 1/4 of the length of your tank, and as it would certainly have trouble swimming long-ways, it would have an even harder time turning around to swim the other direction. These are also open ocean swimmers and love to swim and swim, so even at a small size, they aren't good in that size tank and should be in something 125+ gallon.
Now, the exception is, if you get them when they are 1/2 inch long juveniles, they will be ok in that size for about a year or two max. By that time you will either have to give the fish away or upgrade the size of your tank. Neither option is great, and money situations can often make the later difficult (especially if you started with a 55g for money reasons), so it often comes down to giving the fish away, which isn't easy for pets that you've grown attached to.
There is anecdotal evidence that keeping a tang in a small tank for too long can cause stress that leads to health problems; most notably of which is ich. Tangs are very prone to ich in general, so any stress can really bring it on easily if the fish is a new inhabitant, or if another fish was newly introduced to the tank.
At any rate, you can decide what you really want to do, but you now have some information that will help you see the implications of having them in that size tank.
Would a 55 gallon tank be to small for yellow or blue tangs?
Short answer is yes.
Long answer is yes, with certain exceptions. A yellow tang will get territorial very quickly in such a small tank, they should be in nothing less than a 90+ gallon imo. They don't get extremely big, but they are open ocean swimmers and should have room to swim, but the territorial behavior is a bigger issue in a smaller tank. A blue tang will get to be about 1 ft long, which is 1/4 of the length of your tank, and as it would certainly have trouble swimming long-ways, it would have an even harder time turning around to swim the other direction. These are also open ocean swimmers and love to swim and swim, so even at a small size, they aren't good in that size tank and should be in something 125+ gallon.
Now, the exception is, if you get them when they are 1/2 inch long juveniles, they will be ok in that size for about a year or two max. By that time you will either have to give the fish away or upgrade the size of your tank. Neither option is great, and money situations can often make the later difficult (especially if you started with a 55g for money reasons), so it often comes down to giving the fish away, which isn't easy for pets that you've grown attached to.
There is anecdotal evidence that keeping a tang in a small tank for too long can cause stress that leads to health problems; most notably of which is ich. Tangs are very prone to ich in general, so any stress can really bring it on easily if the fish is a new inhabitant, or if another fish was newly introduced to the tank.
At any rate, you can decide what you really want to do, but you now have some information that will help you see the implications of having them in that size tank.
jthomas0385
Member
okay so I'll stay away from tangs. What kinds of fish would do good in a 55 gallon tank. As of right now I have 2 percula clowns and 1 lawnmore blenny. Thank you!
m0nk
Active Member
Any type of firefish, fairy wrasse, gobies, basslets, chromis, etc, would work out well. Since you have clowns you could keep anything that's either peaceful or semi-aggressive, and if you want a fish-only tank you could do dwarf angels, but if you want coral dwarf angels will sometimes nip at the coral. Hope that helps get you started.
