Tangs driving me nuts!

I know that you can't usually mix multiple tangs together but I've had a sailfin, two yellow and a brown tang for about a year now all in separate tanks. Tonight, I finally decided to stock my main DT. I'm still dripping the corals. My two yellows and my brown are fighting. Not too badly but just the tail lashing. I've heard that if you have a bunch of tangs together, that my stop the fighting. The DT is generally a small tank, only 125g so I know I'm already over doing it with regards to the amount of Tangs I put in there. I plan to later on purchase a purple and a hippo. But if I buy two more yellows of around the same size, would that stop the fighting or would it just make things worse. I even want to put in a sohal to simmer the others down a bit. Should I buy the two yellows tomorrow or just separate them all?
Thanks

 

I currently have 5 Tangs in my 120g, and they get along for the most part. Very seldom is there a bit of tail slapping.

IMO if you do go with a purple, Save it for the last fish, This fish can be VERY aggressive. I personally would separate them or just give them a few days to settle down, My achilles and purple had an epic chase and tail slapping fight but its basicly gone now and was so after a few days.

 

I do plan on giving them till tomorrow evening and if they're still fighting, I'll put them back in their original tanks. I was gonna put in the purple last. Maybe next month or so.
Is tomorrow too soon to take out two of em or should I wait the week out and see if they cool down a bit?

 

It took my achilles and purple about 6-7 days to cool their jets. They never bothered eachother in the open water, My newly introduced achilles decided to take my purple tangs sleeping spot... Which obviously doesnt bode well with the fish.

You just gotta gage it I guess,.. You dont want the fish to get to stressed out with eachother, it can lead with them possibly getting sick. . I personally would gage it, You know your fish better then we do, Just watch and see what action needs to be done. If they are ripping eachothers fins and stuff. IMO I would remove them then.

All my tangs are pretty much juvies/babies, under 3 1/2 inches. Cept for my purple.

 

My 2 bristletooth tangs still get into it after a month or so of putting the binotatus in there with my kole that I have had for close to a year. All fish are new to the 193g as of the end of September.

I will be adding a hippo tang, and a fox face soon, as well as my sump residing lubbock's wrasse, copper band B fly, and spare ocellaris clown. those all ware int he sump due to the maroon clown that I can't catch. Once she is caught, SHE goes in the sump,a nd all those fish go in the DT.


Basically you never know. Obviously the more tangs you drop in, the more chance that fighting will happen.

 

When people say that more tangs can help limit conflict I believe they are referring to natural shoals of tangs. In a shoal there are so many fish that they rarely come in contact with the same fish often. This lessens the conflict as they don't develop rivalry between an individual. As far as in an aquarium I have never heard that more could help lessen the conflict, so I will be watching this thread to see if there is an un-expected answer.

 

I agree. A reef tank, even a large one, is a lot different than a reef in an ocean.

 

There must be a break through number that you get to and the conflict ends. That's my dream tank. 20,000 gallons with about 2,000 of the same species of tang in it spawning like crazy.

 

The tangs have seemed to settle in now. My supplier has a 200 gal with 15 yellow tangs that do fine together and he told me that when he had two in there, they fought all the time so he experimented with putting in 13 more and they school well with each other. Don't get me wrong, there's no way in sump I was gonna add so many tangs in my 125gal. yesterday I just got a hippo and a clown tang instead of putting in more yellow. Everyone is fine together now but the clown tang has been hiding for a while. I think I stressed it out too much cuz I had to move around some rocks this morning.

 

Idk if it is gonna help any but the general rule that I went by always to play it safe w/ tangs is different color, different shapes....so far I havent had any troubles with that but thats easy to follow and the temperament of each fish is different so every situation and tank is a different