Yellow tang attacking Blue & Gold Rabbitfish

[Sanlynn]

Just added a blue & gold rabbitfish to my 150 gallon reef tank. The resident yellow tang is seriously attacking it. I have no other tank to put either one in but it's really hard to watch. (Like going to a boxing match or dog fight.)

The rabbitfish is trying to mind its own business. It acclimated really quickly - even ate within five minutes of being put into the tank. Despite its venomous spines, it seems to be getting really beat up.

I thought tangs would only attack other tangs. Though in my last tank I had three tangs that lived peacefully with each other.

Any thoughts?

Sandy Lynn

 

[coralfish]

my yellow & flame tangs attack ANY new additions;

 

[Sanlynn]

AttacK to the death? Both these guys have damage. It's hard to know what to expect.

 

[TampaReefer79]

When I first started and didn't know better, I had a yellow tang in a 90 gallon tank and it bludgeoned a yellow watchman goby to death. And only because it was yellow. Tangs don't necessarily attack other tangs, as you've noticed. They don't like ANY new additions (for the most part) and especially don't like food competitors - which a rabbitfish is.

 

[svejil]

Tangs are open swimmers, and all day grazers. Rabbitfish are open swimmers, and all day grazers. The yellow tang is a very territorial / aggressive fish. Rabbitfish are not at all very aggressive. You getting the picture here? :spin2:

In all honesty, except for the larger systems with a lot of swimming room and liverock, having a resident established yellow tang, and then adding a pretty mellow Rabbittfish to the system is likely going to have what you see happening. The tang may not notice as much a fish that say, only occupies caves (Squirrelfish), or a fish that hangs out in the upper half of the tank. To have made this work, you would have likely needed to add the tang(s) after or at the same time as the Rabbitfish. Most advocate adding tangs together to avoid aggression. In this case, you could count the Rabbitfish as one of the "tangs" so to speak.

Your yellow tang sees the new introduction as competition, and is closely related to tangs:

Siganids are members of the Suborder Acanthuroidei which includes some families of similar fishes (in terms of feeding, appearance, behavior) that you're probably familiar with; the Scats (Scatophagidae), Spadefishes (Ephippidae), Surgeons/Tangs/Doctorfishes (Acanthuridae), and the difficult-to-keep Moorish Idol (Zanclidae). -- so your tang does see this as too close of a genus.

I don't see / expect a happy ending here, and your only move is to likely remove the Rabbitfish. Some may recommend removing the tang, and then reintroduce later, hoping it loses it territorial nature. That may work as well, however your risk is possibly losing one of the fish if you don't re-home one of them.

SV

 

[Sanlynn]

I wish I could remove one of them now - I would gladly do it to save them. Unfortunately, I have no other tank (even temporary) and I will have to wait for tomorrow or even possibly Sunday.

The odd thing is, in my last tank (we had to break it down when we moved from NY to AL), I had first a yellow tang and later introduced a foxface and TWO other tangs (powder blue and a sailfin). And, they all got along fine, so I wasn't expecting this.

Thanks for your comments. Hopefully, at least this may be an education and cautionary tale for others.:reading:

Sandy Lynn

 

[svejil]

In that case, I would turn off the lights, and see if you can re-home tomorrow.

Good luck, and let us know how it goes.

SV

 

[Sanlynn]

update on tang and rabbitfish

update on tang and rabbitfish

Things between the tang and rabbitfish have settled down. The day after I posted we had to be out of town so I couldn't take any steps to take one of them out of the tank. I left the lights out and by the time we got home it seemed as if the attacks had, for the most part, ceased.

Today I find them swimming around near each other, even eating within inches of each other without any attacks. However, it does seem the rabbitfish may be exhibiting some whitish areas, which I am hoping will diminish as the stress diminishes.

Thanks to all who commented.

 

[snorvich]

Yes, lights out in many cases is a magic solution.

 

[AfricaOffroad]

I have a powder brown tang that goes psycho every time I add a similar fish - butterfly, tang, angel you name it.

I've learned from experience, best option is lights out and I hang towls over the glass to darken it even further.
By next morning, aggression is gone and he is their big mate.

 

[Sanlynn]

Yes, I think that lights out is the biggest lesson learned for me.

Last night when I added seaweed clips (2 so there was plenty to share ) I saw the tang was again on the attack. The lights went out immediately and this morning the rabbitfish is munching away happily!
Sandy Lynn

 

[Luck_of_the_Dra]

Ive added pics of other tangs to the side of the tank. The seems to confuse the aggressor enough to forget about the newbie.

 

[Sanlynn]

Pictures? That's pretty amazing that the tangs would recognize a picture enough to be affected by it. I'll try that next time.
Sandy Lynn