Sailfin Tang
Zebrasoma veliferum

Surgeon fish are named for the scalpel like appendage found at the base of the tail which these fish use to defend of show agression towards others. They will extend it and swim backwards attempting to cut whichever fish they are going after at the time. These fish often grow fairly large and need a lot of swiming room. Often times people try and cram these fish into tanks entirely too small and the fish ends up nervous pacing back and forth, getting sick and then dieing and the aquarist can't figure out for the life of them what happened so they just try again with another tang.

Lately there seems to be some question as to just how reef safe tangs really are. I can personally attest that I had two tangs which developed a taste for coral and killed many before I figured out what was going on. Because of this, I have given serious thought to whether or not I would include a tang in my own personal tanks from now on.

Tangs spend most of their day grazing on algae which makes up most of their diet. If keeping a tang it's recommended that a piece of nori be provided rubberbanded to a rock or in a lettuce clip to allow the tang to eat when the mood strikes it throughout the day. Please do NOT feed your tangs lettuce. This is simply a filler and probably does them as much good as a strict diet of marshmallows would do your kids.

Tangs should be kept one to a tank unless you have a very large tank. Even then only one tang of a certain color or body shape should be kept to limit aggression. And even in this case, the aquarist should try and add both tangs at the same time. Once a tang has established a territory it will defend against any newcomer, especially another tang sometimes to the point where the new comer or the tang die from stress or wounds inflicted. It's recommended a tang be added after all the more docile fish planned for the tank have been added. A tang can even cause stress to another fish by it's busy nature, constantly swimming in and out of the rock structure.

Sailfin tangs are gorgeous with their large fins. These get a bit bigger than other tangs of the same body shape and I often see it recommend that they have a minimum tank size of 125 gallons. The one we keep here seems to be very shy but this could be because I don't spend a lot of time in front of it's tank so it's not used to people as much as one kept in a high traffic area mof your home would be. This tang, although much of this is dictated by the personality of the individual fish, is not agressive to new tanks mates whatsoever.