Purple Tang, what do you think?

[Circa]

Once again I am experimenting with my future fish load and was looking into this purple tang. Now I love the yellow tang, but maby I should get the purple tang instead. What can you tell me about his fish is it really aggresive which tangs will it be nice to which ones will it not be nice too

Its a great little looking fish, hopefully I could accomidate one.. Btw does it have alot of sutle black lines on its body cause I seem to see this in many pictures.

 

[tomocean]

I agree...a great looking fish, but my experience has been that they can be very ill tempered. Mine only occasionally bothers its smaller tankmates. Tangs of the Zebrasoma type (i.e. Yellow, Purple, Sailfin, etc.) will tend to fight. The Purple Tang does have the black lines you mentioned. It is even more striking under actinic lighting.

 

[Henry1]

Mine was acquired since Nov 2000 at 11/2.
Now, its almost 5 inch and a great fish to keep.
Feed like a pig and color is brilliant.

Only one drawback - it will harrass and attack any new joiners about its size or smaller irregardless of shape.
If the new addition can withstand two days of continuous attack, including being knifed

it will earn its manhood

and be accepted by the PT.

One way to lessen the attack is to isolate the PT in another tank, introduce the new fish until it settle down for a few days before returning the PT.
If you plan to add a similar shaped fish, eg yellow tang after getting the PT, do the same as above but this time, try altering the rockscaping before adding the PT and YT together.

Caution : This work BUT not always. PT seem to have good memory of its home ground.

Cheers

 

[Gatortailale1]

Good tips on changing rockscape. How big is your tank? I would advise to have 5 ft long or bigger if adding more than one tang to tank. I have 5 yellow in a 125. LFS guy advised that for more than 1 tang I would need 6 ft long tank to give them plenty of swimming room. All 5 have been great fish since I got back in January this year. I got them at around the 3-4 inch size.

I feed mine seaweed selects and Julian sprung seaweeds.

I thought at time I added 5 yellow to do 4 yellow and a purple, but LFS guy advised that purple would kick sh_ _ out of yellows.

I think that if you change rock you will have good chance to slip in yellow. My 5 tangs each seems to have its own rock spot to sleep at night.

 

[JohnD]

I have had a purple tang for almost a year. He/she is still about 3 inches long and eats like a pig.

Maybe I have an oddball, but mine is afraid of his own shadow. I have added a false perc and later a royal gramma to his tank. No problems at all.

I have had a yellow tang for 5 years and it is hard to tell which tang, the yellow or the purple, is more stunning IHMO.

 

[Psyduck]

Mine also is afraid of everything that moves. He did get upset when I added a foxface, but other than that he does not bother a soul. He is my favorite fish by far and well worth the money, if you find one that eats like a pig. Definitely one of my favorites.

 

[Len]

Z.xanthurum is a pretty mean bastard, even by Zebrasoma sp. standards. Expect fierce initial fighting with any congenors; hopefully, if they both survive this "break in" period, they'll coexists peacefully from that time foward.

Another suggestion to alleviate the aggression is to put a few mirrors around the tank. Specimens will direct some of its aggression on its mirror image and help defuse some of the real fighting amoungst the two tangs.

If you can setup a quarentine tank direcly adjacent to the display tank, that would probably be the best bet. The existing tang will grow more accustomed to the presence of another tang in its vicinity.

[ October 26, 2001: Message edited by: Leonard ]</p>

 

[toptank]

I have a yellow and purple tank and they get along well. I have a 180 with lots of LR so they both have there places in the tank. They seem to swim togeather most of the time which looks great.

Barry