Powder Blue with Achillies

[NewOne81]

No problem. I'm sure i'll get flamed by someone but currently I have thme in a 4ft 120g. I aquired them at about the same time and had them in an observation/qt tank together. They were in the qt tank together but seperated by some egg crate. My thinking was they could get used to seeing each other but not touch that way. Also they were approximately the same size when purchased. After having them in that tank for some weeks i eventually moved them to my display. In the beginning there was some fighting but that only lasted a few weeks and they do pretty well with each other. As for the tank, i feed heavily and aquascaped it so that the rock work is only in the middle and they have access to the whole 360 degrees of the tank. On a final note i do have a 215g tank sitting in the garage they will eventually be going into, so im not a bad fish owner:beer:

 

[steiny805]

love the thread. I recently purchased a 240 gallon (72 x 24 x 31)and I'm starting to come up with a stocking list and the first thing I want to figure out is how many tangs can I comfortably fit and still have a good amount of other fish too. Let me know what your thoughts are. The tank would be a soft coral reef tank.

- Yellow Tang x 3 (if possible)
- Hippo Tang
- Whitecheek tang
- Achilles Tang
- Powder Brown tang

 

[Alex T.]

love the thread. I recently purchased a 240 gallon (72 x 24 x 31)and I'm starting to come up with a stocking list and the first thing I want to figure out is how many tangs can I comfortably fit and still have a good amount of other fish too. Let me know what your thoughts are. The tank would be a soft coral reef tank.

- Yellow Tang x 3 (if possible)
- Hippo Tang
- Whitecheek tang
- Achilles Tang
- Powder Brown tang

Personally, I believe in Bob Fenner's advice of adding "dither fish". Choose a healthy sized group of small schooling fish like chromis or anthias to quell aggression between the surgeons. They act as gnats/mosquitoes that just get in your face and make you disregard everything else that's going on around you. Then, I think adding the Hippo tang would be a good bet because they tend to be among the peaceful ones. I don't personally subscribe to adding a lot of acanthurus species tangs to a six foot tank, but whichever ones you choose I'd add them all at once. I have a 5 inch Achilles in my 195 and I know for fact he'd kill any other tang I added. He's king of the tank and I won't take any chances adding another tang and upsetting this beautiful and delicate fish. Anyone who's had the pleasure of watching an Achilles tang grow and thrive will tell you that they are extremely high strung and routinely pace the entire length of the tank very swiftly. They're also not as good with the nori clip as other tangs. I actually moisten and break off flake sized pieces and feed them to the achilles by hand. He only picks at nori if I rubber band it to a piece of PVC. My leopard wrasse and bellus angel will actually consume much more nori off the clip. Achilles likes to pick. They don't have huge mouths and seem to be very methodical feeders that prefer smaller sized pieces of food.

HTH

 

[dotcommer]

Great thread, glad to see it resurected . Would love an update on how their tangs are doing from when this thread started. A new build (in the last year) "A Reef Tank in The Desert" has multiple tangs, 2 Achilles, 2 Sohals, 2 Clown Tangs a some others.

 

[ca1ore]

There will always be someone who has successfully kept most Tang combinations - doesn't make it a good idea though. I attempted to keep a powder blue and Achilles in a 360 years ago and it was WWIII. Had to remove the PB. If you must do it, I firmly believe in crowding and dither fish.

 

[Marshall O]

love the thread. I recently purchased a 240 gallon (72 x 24 x 31)and I'm starting to come up with a stocking list and the first thing I want to figure out is how many tangs can I comfortably fit and still have a good amount of other fish too. Let me know what your thoughts are. The tank would be a soft coral reef tank.

- Yellow Tang x 3 (if possible)
- Hippo Tang
- Whitecheek tang
- Achilles Tang
- Powder Brown tang

I would personally not recommend 3 Acanthurus in one tank. So I would say to pick one out of the last 3. You could likely still do one from another genus though, such as one from the Ctenochaetus genus.

 

[steiny805]

Personally, I believe in Bob Fenner's advice of adding "dither fish". Choose a healthy sized group of small schooling fish like chromis or anthias to quell aggression between the surgeons. They act as gnats/mosquitoes that just get in your face and make you disregard everything else that's going on around you. Then, I think adding the Hippo tang would be a good bet because they tend to be among the peaceful ones. I don't personally subscribe to adding a lot of acanthurus species tangs to a six foot tank, but whichever ones you choose I'd add them all at once. I have a 5 inch Achilles in my 195 and I know for fact he'd kill any other tang I added. He's king of the tank and I won't take any chances adding another tang and upsetting this beautiful and delicate fish. Anyone who's had the pleasure of watching an Achilles tang grow and thrive will tell you that they are extremely high strung and routinely pace the entire length of the tank very swiftly. They're also not as good with the nori clip as other tangs. I actually moisten and break off flake sized pieces and feed them to the achilles by hand. He only picks at nori if I rubber band it to a piece of PVC. My leopard wrasse and bellus angel will actually consume much more nori off the clip. Achilles likes to pick. They don't have huge mouths and seem to be very methodical feeders that prefer smaller sized pieces of food.

HTH

I will definitely have some chromis and maybe anthias too. That's good advice though. So if I wanted to add the achilles last would that be a bad idea? I won't be adding a powder blue as they seem too aggressive. Would yellow, powder brown or whitecheek tangs pick on an achilles?

 

[steiny805]

I would personally not recommend 3 Acanthurus in one tank. So I would say to pick one out of the last 3. You could likely still do one from another genus though, such as one from the Ctenochaetus genus.

So there should only be one per family in one tank? what if 2 in the same family were added the same time?

 

[NewOne81]

In a text book world you should probably only have 1 tang from each genus. i think 2 of the same family, depending on which tang and size, in a bigger tank can work though

 

[steiny805]

Ok that makes sense. So realistically the following fish should do well together in a 240. 1 blue tang (paracanthurus), 3 yellow tangs (zebrasoma) and 1-2 Acanthurus if added at the same time and probably last.

 

[NewOne81]

Ive seen some tanks with multiple yellow tangs so i think that can work. I would do the same thing and add the 2 acanthurus together at the end if it were me. Every fish has its own personality so nothing is 100% all the time. I'd just be prepared and at least have a temporary holding tank in case you have to remove any.

 

[ace_92101]

I've had both tangs for many years now in my setup with other old friends...
- Purple tang 10,5 years
- Hippo tang 8,5 years
- Sohal tang 7,5 years
- PBT 7 years
- Achilles tang 6 years

last introduced, the achilles had tough times with the PBT for a couple of months. But all thoses fishes live together with almost no agression at all.

I won't recommand to populate a small tank like mine (140 gallons) with such a list of tangs.
I guess I'm a bit lucky to have a peacefull tank with such a population for so many years.

Wow! I'm assuming they must be big.

 

[Tracey2]

Thanks Everyone for sharing your experiences. I would also love to hear from some of the guys from 3 years ago.

At the risk of being flamed I guess I should also share my experience with my achillies & powder blue. I have a 270g, my achillies was the first fish added to the tank, that was the summer of 2010. I gave the tank completely to the achillies for 2 months then added many fish to divide aggression, he now shares the tank with naso, orage shoulder, purple, sailfin and hippo tang along with 3 regal angels, majestic angel and other small fish, most of these guys were also added to the tank in 2010 with the exception of orange should who was introduced this year. I feed well, do large water changes and have a ton of flow to keep achillies happy.

Recently my powder blue tang from another tank started to eat the lps in that tank so I decided to give him a try in the 270, it is divided with plexiglass and am in the process of introducing pb to the achillies and others. I do realize I cannot keep these tangs longterm in this size tank and we do have plans for an upgrade. This is day 4 with the plexiglass divider and so far so good, the achillies is starting to relax and is eating nori right beside pb. My plan is to move pb in a trap soon to the other side of the tank so that achillies can see him everywhere in the tank, then I will either feel comfortable enough to release pb or I will have an lps eating pb up for sale.

This is not my first time trying to add a pb to the achillies tank. A year or so ago I tried to add a small pb but I could tell releasing him would have meant the death of a pb. I do believe though that it could work with the right pb, maybe this one is a female or just a more passisve pb.

Sorry for the long winded reply.

Please keep your experiences coming, I would love to hear more success stories and tips and tricks to making it work or more experiences that will motivate me to sell my pretty pb.

 

[Holsteiner]

Unfortunately I ended up with an achilles that will kill anything, and I mean anything. I already had my purple tang in my 6ft tank for 2 years, I added the achilles with no problem. A week or so later I finally got in my blonde naso (who was to be added at the same time as the achilles but because of a shipping problem arrived much later). Within 30 minutes the achilles had the naso so beat up it was sticking to the vortech and on the verge of death. I quickly grabbed the naso with my bare hands and put him in our 120. Thank goodness the blonde naso is now perfectly fine and happy and living in our other large reef, but i'll never be able to put another tang or any other fish in my reef tank with the achilles. Even something like a wrasse or clown he'll chase to the point of exhaustion. The achilles is now about 6" and an extremely easy fish to keep, however, he's the biggest bully tang i've ever run into. He's been with my purple for about a year and a half and that's how the tank will stay. Now were even working on upgrading to an 8ft tank, the 6ft tank is even a little cramped for the amount of swimming the achilles does.

 

[Tracey2]

Sorry to hear that Holsteiner, good job saving the naso.

When I started adding fish with my achillies I added a majestic and regal angel and he went nuts on the majestic so I threw them all in at once from my other tank all the other tangs and achillies just didn't know who to chase first but he was very upset and I was biting my nails for a few days.

Today I tried to move the powder blue to the other side of the tank in his trap and it didn't go very well, my sailfin started showing aggression to the achillies and both were biting at powder blued box, I have moved him back to his own side of the tank again but am thinking I may have to sell my pb.