Thats a lot of tangs, I bet it looks amazing to see them all swimming around! Do you have much trouble with aggression?
Some, however it has now stopped and it is interesting how it happened.
For a while the only tangs were my 4 year old yelow and the powder blue. As I introduced the Scott's Wrasse the PBT went ballistic and was determined to kill the scott's.
I placed the PBT in the refugium and he stayed there for about 2 months.
Than I saw the tank of emilioc on the PBT primer thread and I really liked to have several yellow tangs as he does. He also has 2 PBT and a sohal all living together without major disruption. I decided to try a similar arrangement, although on a smaller scale. I have always loved sohal tangs but I did not think it was possible to keep them with other tangs until I saw emilio's.
I got 2 more yellows of imilar size to mine, a kole and a sailfin. They were qt and then placed into the dt. At this point the old yellow did not like it and become quite aggressive. I removed him and placed in the sump with the pbt for about 2 weeks.
At this point I decided to reintroduce the old yellow and the pbt in the dt. The yellow aggressiveness was much much less. He has some occasional tail fight with the other ones but seldom and nothing major. The problem was the PBT. As he saw the scott's wrasse he went again for the kill like if the confinement in the sump never happened. At this point I was resolved to trade out either the PBT or the Scott's wrasse.
In the meantime I was eyeing a nice sohal specimen at the LFS. I looked at this fish for hours in the course of several weeks. His tank mates were several regal tangs, and a few foxfaces. The sohal has never bothered any of his tankmates. I thought he had a mellow personality so I decided to bring him home.
Here is the interesting part. As I put the sohal in the DT first of all no other fish bothered him and he did not bother the others. The PBT almost instantly stopped bothering the wrasse. It went from pure fury to total indifference. It was funny to see the wrasse perplexed. As he tried to unhide and saw the PBT his instincts told him "RUN" however the PBT acted like he was not there. After a while the wrasse became more confident and now everybody is swimming together.
I believe that as the sohal was introduced the PBT immediately relinquished his role of "most dominant fish" and this has caused the behavioral change. This is all very interesting and amazing. The only residual aggression is between the yellow tangs, but it is minimal. The old tang just like to remind the others who is the boss.
The naso tang was never an issue. from the very beginning he does not bother and is not bothered.
Alex if I remembered correctly you have a garf bonsai. I would love to be able to get one. I got some corals from garf but the bonsai ws not available. Where did you get yours?
