Clown Tang

Seems
the bigger you get one the hardier they are. wouldnt get one under 4''. They usually do ok that size and are pretty aggressive.
 
I recently bought one and it has been a pain. Not because of it being aggressive, but unless you get as stated earlier one a little bigger getting them to eat is very challenging.

If you do get it to eat it is pretty aggressive when it gets larger, and if you have good lights this fish looks absolutly stunning........ in my opionion.
 
I had a clown tang in my reef for about 6 months or so but I got rid of him because I didn't really know how big he got until I had already had him. A friend of mine had a much bigger tank and had been wanting one. I traded mine with him because he had bad luck with them in the past.

They are very aggressive. I would say they could even be more aggressive then a Sohal tang. I added one that was about 4 inches to my tank that already had an established Sailfin tang. The minute I added him to the tank the CLown tang let the sailfin know that he was not going to be pushed around.

CLown tangs get pretty big, I think they can get around 38-40 cm, which is in the neighborhood of 15-16 inches or so. Having worked at LFS in the past and being active in the hobby, I will tell you that not many people have great success with this species. They are delicate just like the achilles tangs are.

But people do keep them and have some success. It is a mixture of having the right tank for them, picking the right fish and luck. I would say, that you need a lot of swimming room, at least 8 feet or so. They are really skittish and will dash all over the tank and if it isn't big enough they will run into things and hurt themselves. You also need serious circulation and aeration. They like movement.

Also, selection is imperative. I mean, a lot of these fish come into the trade and not a whole lot of them make it. I aggree, I don't think I would get one smaller than 4 inches. I don't think I would buy one that was full size though, not that you are likely to find one that size anyways. I would look for the usual things like color, thinness and feeding. I would be very, very carefull in selecting these specimens. Follow your gut instincts. If you have any sort of bad feeling about the fish in question, don't buy it.
 
i had my tangs previously in a 4foot tank and they didnt really seem to appreciate the length... espically my PBT... even though a 6 footer doesnt seem to be that much longer but my tangs enjoy the lenght now and are more happy crusing from end to end...
 
i just brought a clown tang home, he is about 3". i had the LFS store order him special and hold him till he started eating regularly. two died in the process, which sucks, but they kept trying. i agree with the above they are very touchy and do require a very high disolved oxygen content, higher than any other fish i've run into. they are beautiful and he is my favorite by far!! i have him with a sailfin, a pacific blue, an orange shoulder, a naso, and a ocean surgeon (as far as tangs go). he is very active and constantly cruises the entire length of my tank, i don't know if he (even at this small size) would be happy with only four feet. he doesn't take crap from the others but he doesn't really try to deal it out either, he is the smallest tang i have. i would say work with your LFS store and don't take him home unless he has been eating for several days if not a week. at my LFS they finally had success when they placed him in their reef tanks with natural alge and slowly converted him over to freeze dried and mysis, this may be a suggestion you could give them. good luck with this amazing fish!!
 
a picture of the little guy
135568DSCN1247small.JPG
 
Wow he's great. Sounds like a plan. But I don't only have 4 feet, as I illustrated in the last post. Corner to corner is just about 6 ft.
 
np. I have always wondered about the gallons/tang species was an effective measurement. I always thought that linear space was even more important than total volume and this has prevented me from building a cube tank, which is what I really wanted. But then it occurred to me that a square is made up of 2 right triangles, and each one has a hypotenuse that is longer than either side, so why not??

But to that issue, if I had a 36"x36" square that was 400 gallons it would be 6 feet deep, and no tang would be happy there even if it was 400 gallons. An extreme analogy perhaps, but I think you know what I am getting at.
 
Mine is around 3". He sat in the fish store for 3 weeks and was eating mysis. So I grab him and has been doing fine in my tank for over a month now. Picks the rock all day and eats everything I put in the tank. Doesn't pick on any other fish even when the purple picks on him.

85362clowntang.jpg
 
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