Hi, I have a 3" sailfin tang in my tank and today a friend of mine offered to give me some free fish including a Sailfin that was identical to mine only 4"-5". I checked my marine atlas which said only keep 1 unless it's in a large system. I have a 500 gallon with 350lbs of rock and about 20 fish. Well, the original sailfin just went crazy and he has been chasing the new one around like crazy and keeps pecking at him. It looks like he would rather have him dead. Anyone else have this experience and do you think they will calm down after a few days like alot of tangs? Thanks in advance!
Anyone keep 2 Sailfin Tangs together?
- Thread starter speenach
- Start date
sirbooks
New member
Sailfins can be pretty mean to other fish when they want to be, as the new fish found out. If the new tang is able to convince the other that it will be the submissive fish (at least for now), the aggression may stop. The established tang would probably still do a some of chasing to show the other fish who's boss, but not on the scale it is now. On the other hand, the new tang may never catch a break. If this keeps up over the next few days and/or you notice the new tang is in bad shape, I would move it.
Cool, thanks for the response. It's funny because in addition to the "new" sailfin, I also got an aggressive Powder Blue. After roughly 6-8 hours in my tank, the Powder Blue got gutsy and stuck up for the "new" Sailfin. Now anytime the "original" Sailfin tries to attack the new one, the Powder Blue stands up for his friend and attacks the old one. Now as I sit here late at night watching the fish, it seems the old Sailfin wont even try getting too aggressive to the new one. Infact, the new Sailfin roams a little more freely with the Powder Blue by his side. I hope this keeps up. It's quite interesting. I'll see what happens in a couple of days.
