Yellow Tang Attacking Fish!

xjayx

Member
I just got a copper banded butterfly and my yellow tang won't stop attacking him.
What should I do?
 

wax32

Active Member
Take the CBB back to the pet store. They are hard to keep anyway. Sounds like your tang has his territory set up already. If you are set on keeping the cbb, take out the tang and put him in your QT tank for week while you rearrange the LR in your display.
 

xjayx

Member
Now, why would I take the CBB back?
I'm well aware that they're hard to take care of.
My problem is the tang is attacking the butterfly, not that the CBB is hard to take care of.
Anyway, I just got thirty pounds of dry base rock today.
I pretty much rearranged the entire tank so I added the CBB in today hoping the tang would be disoriented by the changes but it didn't work...
The tang keeps swiping at it with its tail.
I have another tank and am debating putting the tang in there for a week but the problem is, there are already four other fish in that tank... one tang, two clowns, and a mandrain and I don't want this tang going from attacking one fish to attacking four...
 

mister t

Member
give them some time my tang put a beating on a coral beauty i got for a couple days know their okay
 

coralcrazy

Member
I would give it a day or so!! Maybe they are acclimating to each other. Tangs are highly territorial. He is marking his spot with a new member to the tank.
 
T

tizzo

Guest
I had the exact same issue!! My yellow tang wouldn't leave my CB alone. I put the tang in my water change 15 gallon rubbermaid bin for 3 days. It sounds mean but it's heated and aerated, only difference was that I couldn't see him from the sides. When I put him back into the display, I put a large black net in just to change the appearance of things, left that in for 2 days and it seemed to fix the problem. When the CB got to confident and went near the tangs little "spot" he hangs out in then the tang would get aggressive, but other than that they did OK.
 

xjayx

Member
Originally Posted by mister t
give them some time my tang put a beating on a coral beauty i got for a couple days know their okay

They've been together for a few hours...
He's not attacking him with his tail anymore.
He still chases him around but I'll give them some time, hopefully with a few days they'll get used to each other.
 

beachrat

New Member
A while back I got a Yellow Tang. Once acclimated to the tank he became very territorial and aggressive. He hid behind rocks and only came out to wreak havoc on the other fish. He killed a Flame Angel and two Blue-green Chromis and in the process damaged his mouth. He couldn't eat and subsequently perished. I was told that 1 in 20 Yellow Tangs have an aggression problem early on.
 

xjayx

Member
I'm sorry to hear about your tang beachrat
Hopefully my tang isn't that one in twenty.
I'm not sure yet since he's been the only fish in this tank for quite a while now.
Anyway, the two seem to be used to each other. (crosses fingers)
I've been watching them all morning and they've swam right up next to each other with no problems yet so hopefully they'll be alright.
Thank you everyone for the advice.
 

mudplayerx

Active Member
Fish attack one another because there is not enough living space. You tank is probably too small for your critters.
 
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