First fish in new tank......

[corwise]

Mskhol,

Yellow tangs are pretty cool. Had one in Idaho though, big dude, mean as snot, and just want to try something different. Along the same body shape/family are Purple and Scopas, so I thought about those. Purples in my understanding are even meaner then the yellows, and the rest of my fish are going to be pretty peaceful. And I just don't like the Scopas, which is why I was trying to figure out a different one.

Dave

 

[captbunzo]

Trust us here and go with a Yellow, Scopas, or Purple. It will be a good choice...

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

I personally don't have any first hand experience (I'm not a big tang fan, except Sohals). They say that the life expectancy of tangs is roughly 20 years. As far as I know this is anectodtal. I don't think any study has been done to tag a juvenile and watch how it grows in the wild. Either way, it is important for most marine fish to grow as juveniles. After all, the bigger they are, the harder they are to eat in one bite. So, for an out-in-the-open fish like tangs and surgeonfish are, I would suspect that they will at least grow to sub-adult or adult VERY quickly. After all, some people only have to wait about a year for a Juvenile Angelfish to grow 6"+ on top of the original size and morph into the adult coloration. If you plan on having something for five years, I can almost garuntee that it should reach adulthood in about two years after you obtain a juvenile species. Now adulthood is not necessarilly it's maximum size. Take Oklahoma's Striped Bass. They can grow to maturity in a short amount of time, and actually remain quite small. But it's not unheard of catching monster bass at 30"+.

Some aren't what I call prefered species, but it has been done in smaller tanks such as yours. I would recommend one of the following***:

Japan Surgeonfish (Acanthurus japonicus)
White Cheek Surgeonfish(Acanthurus nigricans)
Brown Surgeonfish (Acanthurus nigrofuscus)
Black Barred Surgeonfish (Acanthurus polyzona)
Gulf Surgeonfish (Acanthurus randalli)
Twospot Surgeonfish (Ctenochaetus binotatus)
Unkown (Ctenochaetus flavicauda)
+Spotted Surgeonfish (Ctenochaetus strigosus)
Tomini Surgeonfish (Ctenochaetus tominiensis)
Unkown (Ctenochaetus truncatus)
Biafra Doctorfish (Prionurus biafraensis)
+Yellow Tang (Zebrasoma flavescens)
+Jewel Tang (Zebrasoma gemmatum)
+Black Tang (Zebrasoma rostratum)
+Purple Tang (Zebrasoma xanthurum)

+ - Personal Recommendation
***By no means are these classified by any difficulty, price, aggressiveness, availability, etc. Just species that will "fit" in your tank. There are many that I don't recommend at all.

 

[captbunzo]

Wow!

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

No. This is "wow".....put a $2,999.00 price tag on it, and then it's ridiculous.

 

[captbunzo]

That's just plain crazy.