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I recently picked up 2 pairs of adult S. multi's. They all seem to have some patches of hide missing, with one that has a really tender-looking (pink) patch across the back directly behind the dorsal fin. The last time I saw fish this badly chewed up was when some Malawi mouthbrooders were spawning in a 20 long. The females would be missing patches of scales, but they healed up just fine.
Is this normal behavior/condition for adult multi's? Is there anything to be done to "help" the situation? They seem active and healthy enough, just rather chewed up from conspecific issues.

this sounds like it was caused by something else - not multi in-fighting. i have a mixed community of tang synos & only see an occasional small scratch. are other species to blame or some sharp rockwork where they have been sorting out territoties?

As long as they are in good quality water they'll be ok - perhaps a splash of melafix might help the healing along

i have had 3 colonies of multis and most have had some skin missing right behind the dorsal fin. the male kinda holds on to the female right there.if you were to separate the M's and F's, they would heal in no time.

I don't know whether they did the damage between themselves or other species are to blame. I've only had them for a week, and that's how they looked when I picked them up. I have seen that they are quite active and interactive among themselves, but there doesn't appear to be any conflict between species in their new tank. Along with the multi's I added 8 juvie fryeri (after removing 12 yellow Lab's). One of those was killed, apparently by the dominant Hap, but they seem to have settled down without any further incidents. The Hap's don't seem worried about the Syno's. I suspect the fryeri either didn't back down, or simply didn't get out of the way fast enough. All I saw was a headless and tailless body being chewed up by the Hap's. The dominant male occaisonally chases the fryeri briefly now, but he isn't dedicated about it.
I'd post some pics, but they don't sit still long enough to take any clear ones. I'm somewhat surprised at how active and visible they are. I rather expected them to hide unless there was food present. They act rather like larger petricola (or lucipinnis, never did positively ID mine.)