Flame angel Bullying

Nigel35 · Nov 25, 2020

Added a smaller yellow tang today and the flame is giving some flak. nipping and tail whacking. Flame is a little bit larger than the tang. Any thoughts on how to proceed? Done the blackout method and will probably continue that throughout the day. Really don't wanna lose this guy.

gentlefish · Nov 25, 2020

That’s a cute baby YT then! Did you fatten it up during QT? If not, little thing has nothing to fight with. Then you would need a tank devider, egg crate (Home Depot) for like a month. Held in place by a couple of magnets. Still would need to work on the reintroduction with redecorating and acclimatization box.

Nigel35 · Nov 25, 2020

sorry the flame is bullying the tang. Great advice to follow up on!

Deep · Nov 26, 2020

gentlefish said:
That’s a cute baby YT then! Did you fatten it up during QT? If not, little thing has nothing to fight with. Then you would need a tank devider, egg crate (Home Depot) for like a month. Held in place by a couple of magnets. Still would need to work on the reintroduction with redecorating and acclimatization box.

In my tank I have noticed that when introducing new fish turning down the flow helps a lot. Also lights if you can do that. Hope the flame does well.

badluckman · Nov 26, 2020

Maybe the mirrortrick works? Place a mirror beside the glass and let the angel take out its aggression on that instead. Worked for my angry scopas at least.

Nigel35 · Nov 26, 2020

Trying the mirror and the angel is actually afraid of the mirror. So I guess a small success so far!

vetteguy53081 · Nov 26, 2020

Hmm - I have flame in 2 of my tanks and could not care less about its' neighbors.
leave lights low or off. I presume after 24 hrs it should calm down

Nigel35 · Nov 26, 2020

I blacked out the lights the second he got into the tank (3pm yesterday) as I do for most of my fish to ease any strife. Turned them on today in the morning. Should I just keep them off for the rest of the day?

vetteguy53081 · Nov 26, 2020

Nigel35 said:
I blacked out the lights the second he got into the tank (3pm yesterday) as I do for most of my fish to ease any strife. Turned them on today in the morning. Should I just keep them off for the rest of the day?

Turn them on and see how flame behaves. If still being a jerk, leave off rest of day and even consider placing a mirror at tank so flame diverts its attention to its mirrored image and fights with the imaginary flame angel

Nigel35 · Nov 26, 2020

turned them on this morning at around 9am, flame was and is being a bit of a jerk so I will kill the lights for another day.

Nigel35 · Nov 26, 2020

any worry for my corals or should all be ok for another day? I got SPS, LPS and softies.

Nigel35 · Nov 26, 2020

Only conceivable reason (that I can think of) the fish would be aggressive is that he had the tank to himself for a few months. Probably got to his head and he doesn't like the new resident.