Tangs and foxfaces

[Shilpan Patel]

Hey guys I have a sailfin tang, been in my 105gallon for about a month now.
How is the sailfin tang compatability with foxface rabbitfish? I wanted some colour in my tank and thought this might be a good choice.

Tank details: 2.5 year old 105 gallon softie tank with refugium. Occupants are boxer shrimp, hermit crab, sailfin tang, clownfish, chromis, bullet sandsifter goby and scooter dragonet.

 

[ncaldwell]

I had both with no issues but you are gonna have some fighting. The foxface can hold it's own but how big is the tang? If you can get a foxface that's bigger I dont think you should have any serious problems. Turn the lights out for a day for it to acclimate or put it in an acclimation box

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Ok thank you I assume both a scribbled foxface and a regular foxface would be fine, I might go for the scribbled as it has a more different body shape.

The tang is 4” I believe. The scribbled foxface in the store is about 4” as well, maybe slightly bigger, but not by much. I haven’t purchased it yet, but it still needs to spend some time in my quarantine tanks.

 

[ncaldwell]

Have a small piece of mirror cut from lowes that you can tape to the side of the tank for a couple days just in case it gets a little hairy in there at first

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Thank you! Turns out my cuprisorb finished and hasn’t actually been absorbing copper which is still at 0.15. So I’m gonna have to get rid of that first before purchasing my foxface.

But thank you kindly! There’s an awesome looking coris wrasse but I hear they’re quite destructive...

 

[Grsfish]

I have a foxface and dejardini sailfin and they get along fine. My sailfin is the more aggressive of the 2 and they are about the same size

 

[4FordFamily]

That’s a small tank for a sailfin, IMO they need a 180 gallon+

As far as compatibility it depends. If you add a fish that directly competes for food and they’re he only two herbivores it may not go over well. Although the foxface is “poisonous”, it can still be bullied and stressed to death.

It’s a risk, but it could work. Should you try it, a social acclimation box would be my recommendation.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

I was thinking of upgrading to a 150 next year. But if you think I need a 180 I’m going to start looking into that then. I want to keep the sailfin long term.

I wanted a 300, but I’m worried about doing water changes on a tank that size

 

[wvgal61]

My sailfin had my larger foxface down trying to kill him! I had to separate them.