Aggressive Yellow Tang?

Ok, we know that yellow tangs can be aggressive, but we thought we were doing everything right by adding them in pairs. Last Wednesday my hubby brought home and added to our tank a pair of small yellow tangs and a flame hawk fish.

Well, this a.m., while getting ready to feed them, I noticed one of the tangs was hanging out at the top right hand corner of the tank. I also noticed a small "cut" in its side. He isn't acting sickly, but he is very skiddish. Hubby came home tonight and he immediate seen the problem was the other tang that was being aggressive.

Is there anything we can do to make them play "nice"? We have a 150 gallon tank, and including the three fish mentioned above, there is also 2 clowns, a fire shrimp, three emerald crabs, and some snails.

*How do emerald crabs reproduce? Hubby bought 3 a couple of weeks ago and yesterday I found a dead one. I removed it from the tank. When he got home tonight, he asked me if I was sure that one died because he pointed out three in the tank. They only thing I can come up with was maybe it was in some of the live rock I bought.

Thanks!

Kendra

 

When adding Yellow Tangs, more than one, in a large enough system, you should add 3 or more at a time. 150g is not large enough for 2 to stay out of each others way. Recommned 8' tank for that. And, the dominant one will pick at the other unitl it gives up. Sorry.
The emerald crab molted, your hubby took out the molt.

 

The tangs will prob. always fight if they aren't getting along now.I would take out the one that is getting his butt handed to him.As for the crabs you prob just found a molt.They look just like a full crab.

 

Beat me to it.

 

Thank you both for your help! I just read this to my hubby and he can't believe that I couldn't distinguish a molt from a real crab. hahaha I swear it looked just like a crab. I should have thought of that, as when our fire shrimp molted for the first time, I thought we had "two" fire shrimp. I have sense learned the difference, and now I know the same with our emaralds. This is my hubby's hobby, but I have to feed and look after it when he is at work.

That makes me sad about the yellow tangs. They seemed to get along so well to begin with. Not to mention the $50 down the drain. :/ .

 

yeah if your sump is big enough i would try and remove the one yellow tang and add two more for a total of three in the future...

 

Update: Hubby noticed last night that when the lights were turned down (moon light), they would swim together again. Do you think they will learn to like each other if we keep the lights down for a few days?

And does anyone know why our clowns always hang at the top of the tank? I would like to see them swimming around. They started doing that a lot when they were in the 20 gallon tank (what we had before the 150 gallon).

 

It's hard to say what will happen with the tangs. It is possible that once dominance is established, they might tolerate each other. It's also possible that they won't. Tank is a little cramped for 2 territorial tangs but stranger things had happened..
As for your clowns, mine do the same thing. I am constantly rescuing a clown from my overflow. For some reason they stay right there at the edge. I don't have an anemone but I've been thinking about getting one for them to host.

 

Thanks. Funny that you should say this, as my hubby had to rescue one of them just last night. lol He was messing with the heaters, glass lids off and I guess one jumped over into the overflow (that is what the black things are called, right?). We would like to get an anemone also, but we don't have the right kind of lights yet. :/

So, I'm kind of unclear, 150 gallons isn't big enough for two tangs? I guess I don't understand why adding three at a time would be better. Hubby also wants to add a pair of blue tangs. Which, quite frankly, he wanted to add a yellow and a blue, but the LFS didn't have any blue tangs in (or maybe it was they were bigger and they cost a little more so he decided to wait for small ones to come in? Something like that.), so he just got the pair of yellow.

 

No, 150g is not big enough for the same Tang. These guys need alot of room to begin with, now your narrowing down the territory. You can keep more than one Tang in there, just not the same one.