Hey all. My yellow tang keep bully'in some of the new fish. Just put in a bi color angle (yellow & blue) and he won't leave it alown. Will he leave 'em alone after a few days?

Hey all. My yellow tang keep bully'in some of the new fish. Just put in a bi color angle (yellow & blue) and he won't leave it alown. Will he leave 'em alone after a few days?
Tell more......

Tank size......

Tank Interior decorating......

Current Tank Residential committee.............

Number of fish.................

Tank history....etc,etc.....

Hi, thanks for asking.

Newer set up. 2 -3 months old. After a break of almost 20 years. My older son is into it, so, I'm back.

Its a 44 corner hex. Under ground filter, Fluval 202 filter, two ligths, heater. The ligths are on a timer, and an air pump cycles at night for about 5 hours. Water tests are good.

Live rock starting to grow nicely.

Live rock and fake rock decorations up, and around back wall sides. Lots of holes, and hiding places.

I have the yellow tang, bi color angel (newist), two small clown, small coral bue, small 6 line wrass, two cleaner shrimp, cream colored damsel, 4 snals.

No other issues. So far, all has gone well getting back into this...

Tangs need a lot of swimming room. Yellows have a minimum tank size of 75 gallons. They are very territorial and should be added last. Others will advise you to not use an undergravel filter (I have never used one). A good protein skimmer will be much better.

^^^ the tank IS to small for the tang, and i agree with everything that PSH said ^^^

Your tank is too small for a yellow tang. I would consider trading in that yellow tang for something that requires less territory.

I have to agree with the above advice. Tangs are great swimmers in the ocean and roam far and wide. Having to compensate that urge to roam by swimming around in circles in your 44 gal is seriously compromising the Yellow Tang's inherent life style. They also live in great schools for safety in numbers. He feels threatened by the lack of room and will challenge any tank mate, especially new ones.

Dick

yep, i don't think i need to mention the tank is too small.. oops, i already did...
and as PSH mentioned, the undergravel filter is a bad thing as well, in a few months you are going to have nitrate levels rising and wont know why.. well now you do.
i would also replace all fake/decorative rock with real live rock or base rock, as that's the primary source of filtration. and as mentioned a good skimmer is a great addition (IMO a required addition)

Please dont take this negatively, we are only trying to help, if you have more questions, please let us know, but as recommended that Yellow tang really should come out of there before it kills other fish, or dies from stress (common when they are put in small tanks)

and as PSH mentioned, the undergravel filter is a bad thing as well, in a few months you are going to have nitrate levels rising and wont know why.. well now you do.

Ok, non taken. However, I must ask the question. I guess I'm old school. I had an underground filter years ago, and had great sucsess with my old set-ups. My son said I would not need one too. But, I went with a combo of all the above. Live rock, underground, and can filters. Why do you say my levels will rise soon? The last tank I had 20 years ago was a 45H, undergravel filter, and a small whisper filter hanging off the back of the tank. Thats it! Things were good. Also, before technolage got us to where we are today. Pretty much all there was were set-ups like my old one. If we went for years on the basics, why is it wrong today? :unsure:

And, yes. I've been thinking of taking the fake rock out. I have aprox 10-15 lbs live in there now. The only plus to the fake, is all the hiding places are pre-set :)

its wrong today for the same reasons it could cause problems then.
what happens is that it captures waste materials in the sand bed that basically just rot leading to spikes in ammonia levels, which is processed to nitrite then nitrate.
because you are oxygenating your sand bed, it will not perform any denitrification, leaving it all to your LR, and 10 15 lbs of LR isnt going to handle very much at all.

im not saying it cant be done, but it will require cleaning out and additional measures to handle nitrates.

i would be interested, in what the levels are now
ammonia
nitrite
nitrate
etc.

Well, I guess well just see where this tank goes. As noted before. My set up 20 years ago was under ground, with no problems. The tank has cycled, and levels have been good since then. I do reg water changes.

As for the Tang. During last nights minor warter change. We seperated him from the tank, and shipped him up to my sons house for a bit of time. The tank seems calmer already. And, the bi-color angle is out much more. Thinking just a day, or two. Then, re-install him.

One more thing. I have life growing in my tank:)

http://www.talkingreef.com/forums/new-saltwater/3606-help-i-d-please.html

They look like tiny feather dusters to me... or maybe some polyps.

You might want to just let your son keep the tang. How big is his tank? I've got a 3 inch yellow in my 75 gallon, and he seems to be alright... he's actually kind of a sissy. I can tell that he gets stressed out sometimes though, and it bothers me :/ Especially when I do anything with the tank, like water changes or whatever.

I took a break from my tanks that lasted 18 years. In my old set-up I also used UG filters. I think that they were fine for the FO tanks I kept in the 80's. What you will find is that nitrate levels stay pretty high and this is not a problem for fish. But it is a problem for corals. So if you want to have a FOWLR tank a UG filter will work. But, if you want to keep corals you will probably want to change your filtration.

Hey! Just an update.

After the tang was moved for 3-4 days. He's back in the tank, and all, for the most part are doing fine. Moving him for a few days was good. Like a naughty corner for my 5 year old :wow:

Ok, so I must ask the question then. For now, I'm ok with my set up. And, don't mind the ninor water changes. So, if I were to change. Would I just pull the tube to the under gravel filter, and let it be? I don't want to tear the tank a part just to pull it out?!?!?!?

I wish you luck, F2, but in my experience the calm may not last. Yellow tangs with aggression problems have put me off the species entirely. When they get a "H.O." for another fish, they are relentless. Perhaps in 3-4 days time the angel was able to establish a territory and it will hold. One thing I used to do with NO result was rearrange the tank's decorations and rockwork. I consider that as worthless of advice as keeping salinity lower in fish only tanks. My personal experience has always contradicted the wives' tales on both accounts. I bred African cichilds for some twenty years and have kept saltwater fish for over a dozen. I always tried the rearranging trick even though I was batting .000 until recently. If there's an incompatibility issue now, I just remove the fish I want to have in the tank less. I hope yours all settle in nicely.

Hey! Just an update.

After the tang was moved for 3-4 days. He's back in the tank, and all, for the most part are doing fine. Moving him for a few days was good. Like a naughty corner for my 5 year old :wow:

Ok, so I must ask the question then. For now, I'm ok with my set up. And, don't mind the ninor water changes. So, if I were to change. Would I just pull the tube to the under gravel filter, and let it be? I don't want to tear the tank a part just to pull it out?!?!?!?

I think that might actually work. The point of having a sand bed is for anaerobic denitrifying bacteria to have a place to live, and some people when setting up their sand beds purposely bury pieces of PVC or cover the bottom of the tank with mesh to allow for more open areas that aren't filled with sand but still void of O2. Just make sure you fill in the places where the UG tubes hook up with sand, and keep an eye on your nitrate levels. Before taking it apart though, get some other kind of filtration stable... or you might have some issues.
What're you planning on having if/when you stop using the UG?

I think that might actually work. The point of having a sand bed is for anaerobic denitrifying bacteria to have a place to live, and some people when setting up their sand beds purposely bury pieces of PVC or cover the bottom of the tank with mesh to allow for more open areas that aren't filled with sand but still void of O2. Just make sure you fill in the places where the UG tubes hook up with sand, and keep an eye on your nitrate levels. Before taking it apart though, get some other kind of filtration stable... or you might have some issues.
What're you planning on having if/when you stop using the UG?

So far, so good. Yes, the tang still gets excited, but now. Not so much on the bi-color. Seems "tence" at times. Well see.

So, what "other" types of filtration are you talking about???

Depends on what you want to do with the tank. Most people who have FOWLR tanks use wet/dry filters or cannister filters, cause the fish can handle the higher nitrate levels.

Seems like pretty much everybody on this site (and most other sites too...) uses a Berlin system to filter their reef tanks, though. Basically you let the massive amounts of LR be your filter medium for the nitrogen fixing bacteria to thrive (which is why most of us have refugiums filled to the top with extra pieces of LR rubble). The reason is that its a more natural way to filter the water, so you keep everything in balance. W/D and cannister filters over-filter the water in the ammonia and nitrite stages, and cause high levels of nitrate that has no way of being dealt with. In addition to that, I think we all use protein skimmers to remove biological waste thats been disolved in the water (like fish poop!). If you're going to go with a reef tank eventually, pretty much everybody you talk to is going to recommend that you get a sump and refugium set up and pack a bunch of LR into your tank.