Desjardin's Sailfin Tang

[Goldpony75]

Does anyone know if the juvenile sailfin has a clear tail like the Desjardin's does? i seen one at a local fish store and it is only about a 1 1/2" long and has the clear tail like the Desjardin's but it is priced and marked as a regular sailfin.

[mtfatwork]

IIRC, it is really hard to tell the desjardian tang from the regular sailfin as a juvenile.

[Goldpony75]

Yeah wetweb doesnt have a good pic of a juvenile Desjardin but they do of a regular sailfin juvenile and it looked almost identical to the one i saw, so im thinking the hunt continues. Thanks
IIRC, it is really hard to tell the desjardian tang from the regular sailfin as a juvenile.

[capman]

Don't know, but personally I like the looks of the Pacific sailfins better. Nice bold stripes that they have even when big. They are one of my favorite marine fish.

Actually, both kinds of sailfins are great fish...seem to pretty much have the same personality, which is a great personality. Very interactive fish that I think are much more fun than, say, purple tangs, which in my experience never seem to totally warm up to their keepers the way sailfins do (and one of my purple tangs now tries to slash my hand with its tail spine whenever I work in the tank....really not nice!) Sailfins also change color rapidly according to mood..my Pacific sailfin had at least 3 or 4 distinct color patterns that it would use under different circumstances.

If you have not kept them before, be sure to realize that if they are properly cared for (which means fed a lot...they really eat a lot of food), sailfins grow rapidly and get quite big. If they are are not plump in profile you are not feeding them enough (all the wild tangs I have seen have been much plumper than most of the ones I see in reef tanks, which often are emaciated and stunted). An advantage of having them big, by the way, is that when they get big they eat Valonia (my Pacific sailfin did anyway).

Sorry for getting off on this tangent. I really miss my sailfin tang!

[MNGold15]

(and one of my purple tangs now tries to slash my hand with its tail spine whenever I work in the tank....really not nice!)

My Hybrid Scopas that is in my avatar tries to do that to me all the time, he actually hit me once, thats why I wear gloves, lol. And the problem is that he is rather large and has nice big tail spines that could really do some damage, where as my purple tang will not come anywhere near my hand. My Desjardini will not come anywhere near my hand when I am working in the tank either, and he has been a great fish.

I personally prefer the Desjardini to the regular sailfin, they seem to have more patterns and color that regular sailfins.

[kvmn]

can i have two kind of sailfin in the same 200g tank
?? do they fight??

[Goldpony75]

Kind of a tough question, yes they do typicaly fight but i have also read of individual cases of them being in the same tank, but they were always well fed and had plenty of hiding places. so i would say unless you keep your tank parameters perfect and keep them well fed i would not try it. if you go to http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_4/V4I3/angelfish/Angelfish.htm and read this, this guy has 26 angelfish and dozens of tangs in a 220 but he goes through immense pains to accomplish this. very interesting read though. best of all this tank is/was in minneapolis.can i have two kind of sailfin in the same 200g tank
?? do they fight??

[capman]

If you have a group of tangs in a large tank, introduce them all together at once, and if the stars are aligned properly, things might all settle out really well. I had a large Pacific sailfin and a smaller Red Sea in the 220 along with several yellows, a purple, and a blue, and a large rabbitfish, and things were pretty much OK. Nothing too violent was happening, and there was lots of cover in the tank and lots of food. As months went by, the bigger sailfin seemed to start picking a bit more specifically on the smaller Red Sea sailfin. Was not too bad, not much damage, and everyone was still healthy, but the interactions were getting wilder and wilder and I was getting more worried. Then one day I found the Red Sea on the floor. Very very sad.

I think it could possibly work, but I do have concerns.

Personally, I'd like to keep a group of sailfins, if that was possible (and if I had the tank space). Ideally, a pair. Apparently it is not at all unheard of in Europe for people to keep male-femaie pairs of tangs, and even to have them spawn. I think large tanks and proper layout matters a lot in doing this....e.g., the article I was reading said people doing this would tend to have rockwork in the center with swimming space all around so the fish can be out of sight of each other sometimes.

Man, a pair of spawning sailfins would be quite a sight, I imagine.


Now if I only had Stan's tank........


With a tank like that I'd also have a harem of blue damsels. The males (with the orange tails) are absolutely spectacular when courting females, which is pretty much all the time if females are present...I don't know where they get so much energy. The male I have was a completely different fish when he was in with the female...one of the most beautiful fish I had ever seen. Honestly. But with only one female he too rough on her, and I did not have room for a group, so he is in the anemone tank now, where he is a meek, lethargic fat fish. Still very colorful of course, but he does not prance about the tank like a regal butterfly they way he did when there was a female. He doesn't hold his fins like he did when with the female, and you'd almost think he was a different fish.

[Goldpony75]

Im getting a desjardin tomorrow in the live aquaria order for about $40.00.:banana: cant beat that price for one. now to get it home and put it to work eating my hair algae.lol