tang/surgeonfishes? how many to keep

spoon25

New member
i have a 75 gal tank and wanted to know if 1 yellow 1 brown 1 hippo and 1 powder blue are too many for that tank...they all seem to doin just fine...except a little stress on the hippo wich i think should go away in a few days...
 
WAY too many. The only tang you listed that would be ok would be the yellow tang. Skip the other two tangs.
 
If there in your tank right now, you must take everyone out except the yellow tang. 4 tangs in that size isnt good.

not trying to sound mean but please take this and everyones advice on this one.
 
Nope, don't add any more. The yellow would be the only on I would get. The rest you listed will outgrow your tank in the future. Heres some options for the types of tangs you could keep in your 75.

yellow, kole, convict, and chevron. I would pick from one of those and that would be it tang wise. Your tank is not large enough to hold a larger tank or more then one tang. I myself am getting a kole tang for my 75 gallon.
 
I had a 75 with a yellow and a hippo in it. They lived for several years that way. I would not keep more than the 2.
 
You could keep a yellow tang and hippo tank. I'd say just keep one or the other, but you can keep those both in one tank. The others would require atleast 100 - 120gal. tank to be comfortable and unstressed.
 
I agree about taking all the tangs out except the yellow. If you're not done stocking it yet then you may want to take out the yellow temporarily. Once established, yellows can be downright nasty, making it extremely difficult to add any other fish.
 
I keep a yellow and a blue with no problems yet, but like you i tried a powder blue as well and it was a disaster. The yellow attacked it on sight, this stressed the powder blue so much it had a major attack of ich, luckily my mate took it off my hands and put it in his quarantine tank and its doing fine now. Lesson learned all part of the learning curve.
 
This is not the answer you want to hear but here goes.
We have a 120 and have both a blue hippo and a yellow and I can see that the hippo is getting way to big for a four foot tank. The truth is that you can keep all those fish you mentioned in a 75 gallon tank for a limited amount of time however, they will likely not survive. You will experience territorial disputes that can turn deadly and as the animals grow you will simply run out of room and not be able to provide enough food for them.
Where I work I refuse to sell multiple tangs or any larger tang to anyone without an appropriate sized tank. An adult hippo can reach over 15 inches long, a yellow up to 8 inches. They need a huge long tank where they can graze for algae and "run" about the reef. Tangs are a great fish but one should be very careful about getting one until he/she realizes the responsibility of taking one into your home. If you can not provide for it's needs, simply don't get it.
 
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