The Hard Lesson About Fish Compatibility

[BigHildy53]

Reading about fish compatibility just isn't the same as living it! One of my hard early lessons to learn. One of the new fish I added today was a flame fin tang. I really love his color and shape. Unfortunately my magnificent rabbit fish, which has been in the tank for three months, doesn't like the flame fin tang. Chasing him all over the tank. I finally caught the rabbitfish, and have him in an acclimation box inside the tank. He's not happy!:mad: Do you think a day or two in the acclimation box will calm him down and he'll accept his new tank mates?

 

[Pongo]

I put 2 yellow tangs in my DT 4 weeks after I put a purple tang in.
Normally that shouldn't work, but the 2 yellow tangs spent 1 week in the acclimation box.

At first the purple tang spent all his time trying to tear through the box.
By day 4 he had given up.
By day 7 he never reacted when I released the 2 yellow tangs.

Good luck

 

[Salty1962]

An AE box and moving around some of your rock might help. My Flame Tang and Foxface still get in to it occasionally even after 4 mths. Don't want your Tang to get stung by the Foxface, it leaves a lasting impression What's the size difference between them? My case was the opposite of yours, my Tang chased around my Foxface around non stop for the first 4~5 days until he got stung by the dorsal fin.. The Foxface was half the size of my Tang.

 

[eatbreakfast]

Rabbitfish and foxfaces usually aren't the instigators, but it can happen. In most cases, a couple of days in the acclimation box will settle it down.

 

[BigHildy53]

An AE box and moving around some of your rock might help. My Flame Tang and Foxface still get in to it occasionally even after 4 mths. Don't want your Tang to get stung by the Foxface, it leaves a lasting impression What's the size difference between them? My case was the opposite of yours, my Tang chased around my Foxface around non stop for the first 4~5 days until he got stung by the dorsal fin.. The Foxface was half the size of my Tang.

The gang is half the size of the Foxface. He chose this one Tang and just chased non-stop until being caught.

I am concerned about the stress on the foxface. I will take a picture tonight. His dorsal spines are up and his coloration shows a lot of stress.

 

[seastar]

Foxfaces will do that - show stress that is, he/she will be fine. Mine ended up developing a taste for my prized acans so it needed to be re-housed anyway.

 

[lion king]

Good luck, it's always a gamble; I don't risk it as much anymore. I just last week had a compatibility mishap. I put a mimic tang at least a 1/2" larger than my juvi blueline trigger, whose all of 2.5"; so a 3" fish looks large to him. He relentlessly beat the cr... out of him. I pulled the mimic back to qt, he was ripped up, bruised up, and chunks missing from fins and tail. In a weeks time other than the chunk out of his tail, all is healed up and he's doing great. He's now in my 90 with my lionfish and seems to be happy. It's really hard to judge when it's going to go too far, I'd be cautious because the foxface can also become relentless.

 

[BigHildy53]

I may put him in the sump for a few weeks. I don't have another tank to move him to.

 

[4FordFamily]

I imagine the fox face will calm down and accept the tang. The acclimation box is a good choice.

 

[jasonrusso]

My foxface and kole tang still go back and forth from time to time. After 6 months the nipped fins are all healed up.

My worst mistake was adding another wrasse to a tank with an established Harlequin Tusk. The tusk didn't bother the foxface or the tang, but he promptly killed a big sixline.