HELP! TANG AGGRESSION!

mnreefer327 · Jan 31, 2021

I have a juvenile powder blue tang that is being bullied by a Kole tang. I woke up to the powder blue laying on the bottom of my main display breathing heavily this morning. He is about 2.5-3" long. I quickly net him up and placed him in my 30 gallon tank that has 2 clowns. I plan on returning my powder blue tang to my LFS since it just isn't working. Will he be fine in my 30 gallon for 6 days? He hasn't been an aggressive fish at all and I don't want to have to put him back in my main tank before bringing him back to the LFS. (BTW, my LFS is a couple drive away so it isn't really "local")

Doctorgori · Jan 31, 2021

yes 6 days won’t hurt ...
you got room for a 3rd tang or foxface?
How big is your tank?
Can you temporarily swap the tangs and re-rockscape a lil?
odd, I wudda thought the aggression would go the other way around ... PB’s are often jerks

mnreefer327 · Jan 31, 2021

Doctorgori said:
yes 6 days won’t hurt ...
you got room for a 3rd tang or foxface?
How big is your tank
odd, I wudda thought the aggression would go the other way around ... PB’s are often jerks

I have a 120 with a kole, yellow, yellow belly hippo, and a foxface. I think I'm gonna leave it at that. Also thought it was kind of ironic that the Kole was the one being the jerk... I'm gonna return the PB next weekend. I'd rather return the Kole but it'll be impossible to catch him. He knows the crevices of my tank inside and out

DJF · Jan 31, 2021

Could try the mirror trick; I’ve had good success with it.

Doctorgori · Jan 31, 2021

red light only, saw it on a BRS vid

mnreefer327 · Jan 31, 2021

I'm actually going to try and catch the Kole tang with that red light method... he was a bully to a powder brown I had quite a while ago too...

RC Reefer 5184 · Jan 31, 2021

Mirror trick works as well. Aggressive tang will spend all his time trying to kick his own butt. Lol

NaturalBrnHeathen · Feb 6, 2021

mnreefer327 said:
I'm actually going to try and catch the Kole tang with that red light method... he was a bully to a powder brown I had quite a while ago too...

Kole tangs are going for $250+ on LA, lol.

Do you have just these 2 tangs? If so, adding one more will help distribute the aggression. Plus heavy feeding, nori on clip in a few places & re-scaping with multiple hideouts should help. Never had powder blue but have read that they take their vendetta to the grave, so I'd keep the kole.