Help, I'm stressed and so is a friend (fish)

[ruhspolostar]

Today, (after proper acclimation), I added a fish to replace my brothers birthday present that died, I added a 3" foxface to my 156 gallon reef tank. At first he went and hid, which was expected and in about an hour after hiding he began to swim, and thats when, he began to get bullied. By who you ask?

Was it my 6" Naso Tang?
-no

Was it my 4" Regal Tang?
-no


Was it my 4" Kole Tang"
-no

My evil 4.5" Gigantic orange spotted gobbie?
-no


Of all the fish it was my little 1" baby sailfin tang, what the heck???

He chased him around and when the lights went off he even chased him out of his sleeping spot.

There are plenty of other hiding spaces but the foxface is sitting in the lower corner of the tank, turning colors to black, to white- which is an obvious sign of stress. I even put in some CYCLE tm., which I have used successfully to reduce stress in new fish.

I'm not worried about him being bullied as much as I am worried about him being stressed, I know the other fish are not dumb enough to get stung by one of his spines.

-I just need some opinions on how to calm the situation-

-Thanks in advance

______________________________
(Thanks, a busy waterpolo... oh yeah I'm done with that)

"Live Long and Prosper"

P.S.

i have a 10 gallon nano with a pice of LR and 2 small false perc clowns, the foxface is small if neccessary I could put him in their for a couple of days to a week, but I don't want to because this interrupts two tanks, and it might make stress even higher

-Wha'd'ya think

[Alice]

There are a couple of tricks you can use when acclimating fish to help keep the newcomer from getting picked on:

1) feed your existing fish, cut the lights and then add your new fish

2) rearrange some of the rockwork, that makes all the fish establish new territories...in theory, anyway

3) keep a net in the tank for a couple of days. The established fish tend to think more about the net than the new fish

However, a 156 gallon tank isn't that large in the scheme of things and you have 4 tangs and a tang cousin, the foxface. You may always have a problem with aggression and territoriality among these fish, as well as the typical tang stress sypmtom...ich.

Alice

[ruhspolostar]

-the tangs are small, right now and in the long run I really only plan on keeping one and hes the gentless of all, the Naso Tang, everyone gets along great, this is my first experience (as far as this tank) w/ aggression.

I have a hang on isolation tank, I might use that, but its not really fair to the foxface

Hmm I dunno about rearanging the rocks, I don't think thats an option at this point

[CAT]

I just throw a bunch of junk in to distract the residents. Nets, plastic plants floating around etc. Seems to work until the newcomer settles, because the newcomer doesn't know any different, and the other fish get confused.

Good luck

[salt creepette]

just a thought, what about catching your 1" sailfin and removing him to the 10g for a little while till your foxface can settle in? maybe rearrange the 156 a bit, then reintroduce him in a week? that is if you can catch him...not sure if a 10g would be too stressful for a tang temporarily, but then again, he is very small...anybody have thoughts about this idea?

[Geoff]

FYI- the blotchine black and white pattern is normal. they use this as a nightime cammo. nothing to worry about there.

G~