powder brown tang and fairy wrasse problems

[B.rian]

hello all. i have been having an issue with two of my fish. i have noticed for the last week or so that my scott's fairy wrasse seems to be getting his fins nipped by someone, they look a little ragged. at first i thought it was my starry blenny who is somewhat aggressive, but today i saw that my powder brown tang was the one doing the biting. the wrasse was the last fish added to the tank, but it has been there a few weeks ago. does anyone have an idea how to stem this aggression? the only thing i have thought of is to remove the tang from the tank for a couple days. thanks for any assistance that anyone can provide.

 

[Moe_K]

you can try a couple of things...
turn out the lights in the tank and move the rocks around. that should reset the territory for their turf wars.

add a mirror onto the end of the tank. the PBT will hate its reflection - thinking there's another PBT in the area. it'll spend time flexing in front of the mirror, and give the wrasse some peace.

or do both.

 

[RichConley]

Do you have a large sump? or any way you could hook a decent sized holding tank to the system temporarily? If so I'd remove he PBT, and banish him there for a week or so. That should be long enough that the wrasse wont be seen as an intruder in his territory.

Then again, given time, the aggression may just calm down on its own.

 

[nickyblase]

I've had luck with re-arranging rock work. Another thing I've done (don't laugh), is chased after the aggressor with my long tank tongs like it was a big fish mouth coming after them, and low and behold made him mellow out for a few days!

 

[B.rian]

i have a 10g tank that i setup when i need to quarenteen newbies. i could probably use that to remove the tang into for a week. i just didn't really want to remove him i guess. tomorrow i will try seting up the 10g for him. he will be ok for a week in a 10g right? i would just be removing water from the main display for it and put my hob filter on it.