Acclimation Box Behavior

[tetoccb]

How is acclimation box behavior to be interpreted?... I’ve added a sail fin tang to my standard 120 in an acclamation box... I have a larger yellow eyed kole tang (ignores my yellow watchman goby; harasses my lawnmower blenny; follows my royal gramma like “please be mah frie-unnnd”) who has already assumed the role of head honcho - supplanting my royal gramma...

I put the sail fin tang in the acclimation box during lights out, late last night/early this morning... When the lights came on about three hours later, my kole tang woke up and was business as usual... No signs of aggression towards the sail-fin-in-a-box, at all...

Are they ready to mingle?...

 

[bzb]

Had same behavior with my foxface and the kole tang - couldn’t care less while he was in the acclimation box. As soon as the foxface was let out, the kole tang started backing into him. Never got him with the scalpel, but chased him around.

Taping up a mirror to the side of the tank worked perfectly for me. The kole tang is still super aggressive toward my lawnmower blenny, though.

 

[tetoccb]

Thanks, I’ll try the mirror, when I get home, today... front or side of the tank?...

When I released the sail fin, what started as posturing progressed to tail swipes (I was impressed that the smaller sail fin held his ground)...

Rather that risk the kole wearing him down, overnight and, possibly killing him, I put the sail fin back in the acclimation box (wasn’t happy about it, but he wasn’t intimidated by the net and was the easier catch)...

 

[bzb]

I used one of my wife's old eyeshadow pallet mirrors, just ripped out it out and taped it to the side of the tank.

I had similar experience, the foxface would trigger all his spikes while getting tail swiped. I was more worried for the kole tang, to be honest. Funny enough, they're besties now, following each other everywhere and sharing the nori clip.

 

[tetoccb]

I’ve got some spare mirror tiles... Hubby gets suspicious when I look at items too thoughtfully... I’ve already “appropriated” a few of his kitchen items...

I’m hoping to get them to that point... it’s funny to see my kole tang “schooling” with my royal gramma)...

 

[sharktopus_prime]

I can confirm that the mirror trick works. My Kole tang was trying to take out my chocolate tang until I put a mirror tile on the side of the tank.

My Kole tang spent a few days harassing himself in the mirror and then moved on to usual behavior and now he and the chocolate tang are best buddies, scars and all.

Tangs are drama sometimes.

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[tetoccb]

I can confirm that the mirror trick works.

Thanks... I see that... Koles more dramatic/aggressive than Sail Fins, apparently...

I’ve had the mirror up for almost two days, now... She’s looking pretty stressed... Mirror behavior continues when I remove the mirror (perhaps she still sees her reflection in the glass)...

I’m going to remove the mirror, today, to see if it’s worked... If not, I’ll use the mirror to trap her and move her to my biocube for a week or two before reintroducing her to the main tank...

 

[tetoccb]

Second time taking down the mirror since yesterday... So far, so good...

Looks like she’s still reacting to whatever reflection she sees in the glass...

 

[sharktopus_prime]

My kole tang took about 3 days of the mirror treatment before going back to relatively normal behavior again.

FYI, this was a fresh incident for me because my chocolate tang and baby hippo tang just came out of QT about a week ago. My mirror is still there, which is pretty much ignored now. I will be taking mine down this weekend

When I add my last fish (likely a purple tang) in a couple months, I will be putting the mirror up again for a week to mitigate tank-mate aggression.

Things have gone well for me with the mirror trick.

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[tetoccb]

That’s good to hear... at times, she appeared to have snapped... I guess it’s quite stressful...

Her response to the mirror has not decreased... The two had a good night, though (no one injured or dead), after I took down the mirror...

The Sail Fin has been following the Kole... May be low-key-petite-tang aggression...

We’ll see...

 

[tetoccb]

So far, so good...