acclimation of tangs with other tangs

[beadlocked450r]

I have 325g tank with a vlamingi tang,hippo and yellow tangs and I want to put the Atlantic blur and blue eye kole from my frag tank into the dt, is there any way to do this without them killing each other?

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

Wow! That's a giant tank... For my teeny tiny 55 gallon I made a divider using the egg crate lighting cover that you find at home improvement stores. The sheets are 2'x4' I made it long enough to sink into the sand bed and wide enough to go from the front glass pane to the back glass pain. I then covered it on one side with plastic window screen which I fastened with zip ties.
Next I waited until the fish that I wanted to separate were on one side of the tank... You can probably coax them there with a treat like nori sheet on a clip. Depending on the rock work in your tank this may or may not be possible, however you can shape it to a rough estimate of the shape of your rock work because I'm sure your tangs are quite large. Once they are where you want them just clip some clamps to hold the screen in place.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

This is what mine looked like. I hope this works...

 

[Myka]

If you have a way to insert a divider, that's really the best option there is. Aside from that, in the evening feed the display tank well so everyone has fully bellies, wait for the lights to turn off, add the new fish by placing them down into the rock (don't pour them in at the surface) away from the other Tangs fav spots, and install a few large mirrors facing into the tank to distract the old fish. You can buy some 10" or so mirrors at the dollar store for a few bucks. Tape them on so the old tangs can see their reflection. This drives them bonkers, and they will usually spend more time fighting their reflection than going after the new fish. You may need to keep the lights off for a few days - just turning them on to feed the fish a bit, and then back off. I've introduced a Gem Tang into a 375-gallon tank that housed several Tangs, including an Achilles, and a few very feisty Hogfish. It was touch and go for a few days with the Achilles, but they now reside ok together.

 

[Fish_BowLisha]

Distraction! I love it oldest trick in the book works great on toddlers too!

 

[4FordFamily]

Acclimation boxes work well. Adding several tangs at once usually helps spread aggression as well.

 

[Cment]

Acclimation boxes work well. Adding several tangs at once usually helps spread aggression as well.

Different body types helps too. the kole should be fine I think it may be the atlantic blue I would be a lil worried about but really its always a gamble adding more tangs into an established tank with others. You have the benefit of a big tank so the odds are with you. What Ive mostly encountered from my personal experience is that if the "boss tang" in the tank excepts them and doesnt beat em up, it usually turns out OK. Best of luck

 

[beadlocked450r]

Why should I be worried about the Atlantic blue? The 2 tangs in question have been in my 80g frag tank with another yellow tang for over a yr.

 

[beadlocked450r]

I might build an acclimation box, how long should fish stay in the container? How much room should it have to swim? The boxes I can buy are only 11x9 or so, which isn't very big.

 

[Cment]

Why should I be worried about the Atlantic blue? The 2 tangs in question have been in my 80g frag tank with another yellow tang for over a yr.

It's a little closer in body type to the yellow tangs. It may be a non issue, like I said it's always somewhat of a gamble when adding new tangs to an established tank. Sometimes certain types of tangs get along in one tank but take them out and put them in another tank with that same species and they fight. I'm just speaking from my experience with them...again you may have nothing to worry about.

 

[ca1ore]

I might build an acclimation box, how long should fish stay in the container? How much room should it have to swim? The boxes I can buy are only 11x9 or so, which isn't very big.

FWIW, I built my own box for the simple reason that none of the commercially-available offerings were big enough. All your owned and proposed Tangs are from different genus - so that always helps.

 

[beadlocked450r]

found this at the dollar store, it's about 12x12x9. Think this is big enough? I put some mirrors on the tank yesterday and my tangs don't seem to really care when they see themselves, I even put the mirror directly infront of my vlamingi and he didn't seem to care. I'm hoping once I put this basket in he doesn't care about the fish in it either. I think this will tomorrow's project.

Also do you think I should put window screen inside the basket to keep the fish from the sharp edges?