how many tangs in an 80?

[Twitterbait]

It is hard to imagine 80 as a small tank but it is i guess. let me tell you what i tell other people who ask me.

yes you can and it will probably do fine, at least for a while. but it will be a problem eventually. There is a lot you can get away with some of the time that would otherwise be disastrous. Now nobody here can say we run a perfect tank (people with glass fish tanks should not throw stones) so we can only give advice based on experience or what we hear.

My advice, small tang at most.

Now if you decide to do it i will give you the other half of my advice (this is where experience pays off) this is what you need to watch for to tell when it is time (past time) to get a bigger tank for the tang:
1. if it goes from swimming normally to being skittish or hiding all of the time
2. if it stops eating
3. if it shows more aggression than usual (watch the fins on the other fish in the tank)
4. and the biggest sign... if it gets sick (if you have a healthy tang develop ich for no reason then the tank is usually getting too small and stressing it out).


So you get to choose just be prepared to deal with it if it does begin to feel cramped. the good thing is with the footprint your tank has you can get a much larger tank and keep your stand and hood the way they are.

good luck

[Dragonist]

Originally Posted by three90s&125sump

I once saw a 600 gallon cylinder with about 50 yellow tangs in it.

I think if you just wanted to stuff it full of yellow tangs (very fiesty fish) I would try 6 tops with no other fish and with maybe 40 to 60 pounds of live rock, DSB, a pair of tunze 6100s on a 7095 controller and a hella skimmer. You might want to have a 55 or bigger for a sump.


I think it would be neat to see but as stated above not the best option. Also, it would be hard to get them to live through the initial mini cycle of adding 6 tangs (the only fish) to a tank that small. You would have to be creative with your filtration options at first. Like put a trickle filter on it and rot about 5 large shrimp in it for 3 months then remove the shrimp and add the fish and slowly remove the trickle filter over the next 2 months. Youll also have to expect them to get ick several times. Also plan on 20 percent weekly water changes for the duration of the set up.


I am going to get booed off stage for this post.

How about if he builds the tank up lil by little with live stock. Say a couple chromis a month. Than pull all of them than trade them in for store credit and drop in the tangs. Would this allow the tank less of a shock due to already have a stable amount of fish?

[three90s&125sump]

Originally Posted by Dragonist

How about if he builds the tank up lil by little with live stock. Say a couple chromis a month. Than pull all of them than trade them in for store credit and drop in the tangs. Would this allow the tank less of a shock due to already have a stable amount of fish?

Yeah, that would work too. Dead shrimp are eaier to catch though.

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by Twitterbait

Now nobody here can say we run a perfect tank (people with glass fish tanks should not throw stones)

So if I get an acrylic tank I can judge

If I was going to be trying to buildup a system for a sudden influx of bioload I may go the unscented ammonia just for a means of adding nitrogen and slowly scaling it up. start with a capful and work up from there dosing daily. just a thought. A shrimp is going to be like a bell curve of nitrogen being released into the water column and is a bit different than feeding a tang every day.

[three90s&125sump]

Originally Posted by jenglish

So if I get an acrylic tank I can judge

If I was going to be trying to buildup a system for a sudden influx of bioload I may go the unscented ammonia just for a means of adding nitrogen and slowly scaling it up. start with a capful and work up from there dosing daily. just a thought. A shrimp is going to be like a bell curve of nitrogen being released into the water column and is a bit different than feeding a tang every day.

Best idea yet.

[Dragonist]

well my idea started the thought process

[three90s&125sump]

There are a lot of people biting their tongues.

[fishdweeb]

I'm a bit confused. I kept; a yellow tang, blue hippo, false perc, sleeper gobie, all in my 75 reef and they thrived for five years until I sold the entire system, and they thrived for another 2 years until the Airman that bought them was deployed and had to sell them again .......so, 7 years in a 75 reef... and they, pretty much, were all added within days of adding the live rock...

was I just lucky? I didn't add any dead shrimp or chromis...nor did I test the tank parameters for about a year...(I did do weekly water changes...)

I understand that everyone's "reality" is a bit different but what I am reading here is a considerable distance from my experience...

I'm not arguing, I just want to learn more.....
filled my 80 last night....Live sand going in soon...

[three90s&125sump]

If you don't know how you successed then absolutly, yes, it was pure luck.

Research around about the swimming habbits of tangs and you wull see that like hampters they will cover many miles per day swimming (I know hampsters run). The longer the tank is the less they have to turn and the farther they will "travel" in a given time. Its purely instinctive and went their instinct gets disrumpted the fish gets stressed and they can't meditate so they get sick.

[Dragonist]

the chromis and shrimp technique was mainly concept to get the tank used to life stock. So that it can grow bacteria for the live stock. Everytime you add to the tank it has to adjust to its lifestock. That why some say only add a fish a month 1 coral month etc etc... Its mainly so the tank can get used to its lifestock.