Add an orchid dottyback?

[Silly clownfish]

I have 75g mixed reef (20g sump). My current fish are:
Ocelaris clown
Flame hawk
Randalli goby
One spot foxface rabbitfish
Green mandarin*
Solorenis wrasse (red head solon)
I also have a coral banded shrimp, serpent star, and brittle star, LPS, SPS, and soft corals and a maxima clam.

I think I have capacity for one more smaller fish and would like to get an orchid dottyback. *It has a lot going for it: available tank raised, color, typically non-agressive for a dottyback, should not compete with my madarin for pods. *

Any thoughts? Reasons this wouldn't be a good idea that I missed?

I usually ponder a fish selection for a couple of months before acting, so no rush here.

Thanks,
Kim

 

[brett559]

I added one about a week ago. Went right into the rockwork. I've seen it once since for a few seconds. Guessing I won't see it again. Same thing happened to my brother. I hope it resurfaces some day, but I'm not holding my breath.

Pretty fish though....

 

[OrionN]

Make sure you feed him a good variety diet and he will stay brilliant in coloration. Same thing day after day and you will have a dull light purple fish. Once they get comfortable, you will see him plenty. Beautiful fish with to take good care of him.

 

[bcub30]

Smart to add the dottyback last. They can be rather hard on new comers. It will start to come out more over the next few weeks as it becomes more comfortable with your setup. My neon dottyback was very shy at first but now is always out in the open.

Sent from my LGLS990 using Tapatalk

 

[wesamazmy]

I have 75g mixed reef (20g sump). My current fish are:
Ocelaris clown
Flame hawk
Randalli goby
One spot foxface rabbitfish
Green mandarin*
Solorenis wrasse (red head solon)
I also have a coral banded shrimp, serpent star, and brittle star, LPS, SPS, and soft corals and a maxima clam.

I think I have capacity for one more smaller fish and would like to get an orchid dottyback. *It has a lot going for it: available tank raised, color, typically non-agressive for a dottyback, should not compete with my madarin for pods. *

Any thoughts? Reasons this wouldn't be a good idea that I missed?

I usually ponder a fish selection for a couple of months before acting, so no rush here.

Thanks,
Kim

I am not fan with all dottyback, I have experience with yellow dottyback and eats cleaner & camle shrimp, so I trapped him to get out and no more dottyback

also the dottyback in general is very smart fish and even add lastly will dominate the tank after a while. I have a three strip damsel fish which is fight everything and it was the boos of the tank, but he had no chance after the dottyback came, 3 days only and the tank is only for him

This is my dottyback in the cage

https://youtu.be/1D2Sc303SY0

My advice keep it out of your fish tank

 

[OrionN]

Orchid dottyback are a lot smaller and not at all aggressive like your yellow dottyback. I think the OP already know this

 

[civics14]

I have a neon dottyback that I added over a year ago, ever since adding him, I added a CBB, Yellow Coris Wrasse, Leopard Wrasse, Potters Wrasse, & Melanurus Wrasse. He doesn't bother anyone as he has his own little hole under a rock structure that he keeps to himself and comes out to feed, else you only see his head popping out waiting for food. He's about 3" in length now (maybe more). Model citizen to my fish, but a terror to snails or hermits that come across the sand bed. He leaves them alone if they're on the rocks.

I believe the orchid is a more peaceful dottyback than the neon from what I read. I think you should be fine.

 

[wesamazmy]

Orchid dottyback are a lot smaller and not at all aggressive like your yellow dottyback. I think the OP already know this

I think we all here to tell or our stories and experience. :uzi:

 

[Silly clownfish]

Wow - my posts don't usually get so many responses so quickly - thank you!

There is a lot of good advice here. I do know that the orchid is typically the least agressive dottyback. I would really like to have most or all tank raised fish, but the fish that can be TR are limited and limit what you can keep with them due to personalities.

Minh - that is grat advice on the varied diet. i do try to feed a varied diet in general because I feel it is best for health and also helps prevent picky eaters. But sometimes I will get lazy and out off buying more food for a while to use up that jar of pellets that has been open a while.

If I do encounter behavior issues, I could remove teh dottyback to my 30g FOWLR (and some junk coral frags) with my valentini puffer. I am pretty sure the puffer can hold his own against a smaller dottyback. Of course that does mean going through the dreaded fish catching exercise.

I think the fish in my main tank most at risk of being bullied would be my randalli goby and he is pretty well established in/under the LR island on the rigt side of the tank (my aquascaping is the ever popular 2 islands approach). After QT I can introduce the dottyback in an acclimation box on the left side to try to encourage picking that rock island as home base.

Kim

 

[starkii]

I wouldn't hesitate adding one. I've kept lots of dottyback and these are really quiet in general. In fact I just added one to my tank a couple of weeks ago and it's settled right in and is out quite a lot. This isn't a species that will always be in the open, more something that spends a lot of the time in and out of the Rock work and this makes me look more into the tank and notice things I wouldn't otherwise.
I don't think you'd have any problems with you other fish and having kept both, your hawkish is potentially more of a problem to other fish than the dotty is likely to be. It wouldn't stop me keeping the hawk either.

 

[brett559]

Not to hijack this thread, but I am going to go ahead and hijack this thread. Have any of you had an orchid go MIA for a long time and come back. My rockwork is pretty open and sparse - I have NO IDEA where he is. I haven't seen him for almost a week. Gotta be dead, right? I've never seen him eat.

 

[civics14]

Not to hijack this thread, but I am going to go ahead and hijack this thread. Have any of you had an orchid go MIA for a long time and come back. My rockwork is pretty open and sparse - I have NO IDEA where he is. I haven't seen him for almost a week. Gotta be dead, right? I've never seen him eat.

I'd say he's dead. Only thing that I've experience disappear that long is my wrasses that come back out as if nothing had just happened.

 

[jmm]

Not to hijack this thread, but I am going to go ahead and hijack this thread. Have any of you had an orchid go MIA for a long time and come back. My rockwork is pretty open and sparse - I have NO IDEA where he is. I haven't seen him for almost a week. Gotta be dead, right? I've never seen him eat.

I'm more concerned for your brother that disappeared in post #2 than your fish.:eek2:

 

[OrionN]

I think we all here to tell or our stories and experience. :uzi:

You did not need to shoot me.
You can learn too my my post not just the OP, although like I said before (s)he already know this.

Kim,
I feed all kinda of things. Tried to get as many type of food as you can and use Selcon drops on it as it thaw out. I order multiple frozen food, about the only thing I don't add to my tank is brine shrimp

 

[brett559]

I'm more concerned for your brother that disappeared in post #2 than your fish.:eek2:

Ha! When I typed that originally, I chuckled and wondered if anyone else would read it that way....

Thankfully, my brother is just fine!

 

[ThRoewer]

I would add a pair of orchids.

I just picked up 3 orchids and a neon dottyback, all TR by Sea & Reef (better quality than ORA). A local store has a moving sale with 50% on all fish and inverts so I thought this might be the right time to revisit my previous attempt of keeping the orchids in a group.

The Neon is a replacement for the previous female which got killed in an accident. The male is in my 42 gallon with a pair of percula, a pair of marine betta and a small Sumatra regal angel. There he is the one who gets chased around by the other fish if he gets in their way. By now he has learned to keep a low profile and not to step on anybody's toes.

Another pair of dottybacks I have are Pseudochromis cyanotaenia. They are too busy chasing each other to even notice the other fish in the tank (a pair of blue striped pipefish)

 

[Moort82]

Not to hijack this thread, but I am going to go ahead and hijack this thread. Have any of you had an orchid go MIA for a long time and come back. My rockwork is pretty open and sparse - I have NO IDEA where he is. I haven't seen him for almost a week. Gotta be dead, right? I've never seen him eat.

I had my springers dotty (now 10 years) go missing for a couple of years after I added a sixline. There was no aggression but it just hung out in the rockwork making it hard to see, being black, and basically I didn't see anything of it until I moved the sixline to my other tank and 10 minutes later out pops Mr Springers. Its harder for an fridmani to hide but they can be experts at it.

Do you have anything large in the tank that might be putting it off or any fish that are similar? who it may feel threatened by.

 

[wesamazmy]

You did not need to shoot me.
You can learn too my my post not just the OP, although like I said before (s)he already know this.

Kim,
I feed all kinda of things. Tried to get as many type of food as you can and use Selcon drops on it as it thaw out. I order multiple frozen food, about the only thing I don't add to my tank is brine shrimp

I just want to make it fun, dont worry!

 

[brett559]

Do you have anything large in the tank that might be putting it off or any fish that are similar? who it may feel threatened by.

What do you know?! As I fed the tank this morning, I saw a brief flash of purple. It was my MIA orchid dotty. So he must be eating something.

As for your question, the three minutes he was in the tank before he ran for the hills, my perc clown got a little chesty with him. I also have a mystery wrasse, a candy-striped hogfish, and a flame hawk. My midas blenny and green chromis are pretty low-key. My hope is he's just getting used to the tank and will venture out more as time goes on.

But hey, HE'S ALIVE!!!

 

[paul87]

I love my orchid dottyback.

Gets along great with all my current fish: