Just got a Yellow Scopa Tang, while he is eating and seeming very healthy, he is fighting his reflection. Should I worry about him hurting himself? Or is there anything I should do to stop him?
Is there any way you can break his line of sight to his reflection?
Like you or I might see our reflection on window when we look out, he is glimpsing himself and thinking it is another Scopa. Tangs are dumb - he may never figure out he is just seeing himself. You might let algae grow a bit on glass - not my favorite idea but depending how aggressive he attacks. He may only be seeing faint reflection, so your Scopa may only be giving faint attack and not giving it 100%. Also wondering your tank size and age... if its a relatively new setup, let it get stuff growing on rocks to distract but you may need to breakup rocks and use reef mortar to craft 'new rocks' building higher stable/sturdy shapes to distract tang.
When I need to introduce new fish into my tank, my sailfin is given a mirror. He throws himself at it, swiping, cutting, body bashing, flailing, doesn't bother to eat because he is so focused on killing the 'other' tang (himself...) If you can't block where he sees himself, then also try removing anything sharp in the area so if your Scopa goes 'all in' to kill reflection, he doesn't have anything near that he can hit himself on while attacking glass (my sailfin's case, mirror) Better my sailfin use that level 150% aggression on mirror instead of new fish... I also use acclimation box in display tank after quarantine on new fish - my acclimation box is 'meet & greet' before really going in.
My first QT was bow front, and it wigged out my fish. Now I have a rectangle small QT. However, having small QT means more glass closer all around my fish, so more reflection. My established tank had to move yellow tang from DT to QT during tank treatment, and think yellow tang was hiding from himself/reflection in the 2-3 weeks he stayed in QT. Now back in DT, he is doing fine but I've a 180g so a lot of room between fish to glass in DT (vs QT 5g). My sailfin is currently in sump for next month while yellow reacclimates to DT. Due to size and their aggression, since yellow went on 'vacation' in QT couldn't have sailfin treating him like "new" fish ... I'm noticing in sump where there is acrylic all around, my sailfin has been doing faint aggression attacks so he must see himself faintly. Eventually I'll get him back into bigger main tank as glass tank reflection was never a problem (just something once in a rare while).
