Aggressive Azure Damsel?

[Homeytwist]

Hello everyone, I seem to be having an ongoing problem with an Azure Damsel in a relatively new system. At the moment it's a 5 mo. old 70gal FOWLR tank (soon to become a reef once the lighting is finished) with various crustaceans, a black clown (false perc.), royal gramma, and azure damsel. When first introduced this damsel was a sh** disturber, but the other two fish quickly put it in its place (mainly the gramma) and it staked out its area in another part of the tank. Things were fine for a couple months, but recently this damsel has migrated to the part of the tank around the gramma's hideout and continues to pester the other two fish. Today I see that the gramma's missing a few scales and it's quarreling with the damsel.

I'm having a hard time understanding how two supposedly peaceful fish are constantly harassing eachother and even the clown at times. I'm wondering if the small number of fish are giving eachother easy targets? If there were more fish their attention might be divided?

I'd appreciate any advice on the matter.

Thanks
- Justin

 

[anbosu]

Damsels are not peaceful fish.

 

[falconut]

I've had my Azure for over 3 years with no problems. I've got a pair of ocellarous clowns, royal gramma, green chromis, 2 lyretail anthias, hippo tang, six line, banner cardinal, yellow clown goby and yellow watchman goby. I have about 120 lbs of LR in the tank with lots of cave type openings, so there's plenty of hiding spots for all the fish. I've never really had any aggression problems with anything, so mabye it's that there's enough hiding spots. Or I've just gotten lucky with the individual fish. Do you have enough LR and hiding spots?

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Damsles are notorious for their aggressive behavior. I suspect the harrasment will continue and you'll end up with a dead gramma.

 

[reef_doug]

I have 5 Azure damsels in my 180, excellent tank mates! Never cause a problem. I don't have clowns or basslets though. I do have an ORA sharknose goby (2") and they ignore him.

 

[Homeytwist]

Hey everyone, thanks for the replies! The tank has about 45lbs of LR in it which doesn't sound like a lot but it's reef-saver rock (very porous) and it's built up in an elaborate structure (I'll try to post a pic below) so I think that there're plenty of spaces for the fish each have their own little corner of the tank. On that note, for the first couple months the gramma and the damsel each had their own "turf" on opposite sides of the tank. Recently though the damsel's taken up a new home that's closer to the gramma's hideout. Watching their behaviour it still looks like the gramma is the dominant fish in the pair, but they still bother eachother and the gramma's got a couple bald-patches (look like missing scales).

I see a bit of a theme here in people's replies and that is that Damsels are generally aggressive, but some people have well behaved Azure Damsels (which agrees with my initial reading before buying the fish; the Azure and the Yellow Tail are well behaved) and some have more aggressive ones.

The photos are shortly after the build (pre-livestock), but you'll get an idea of the layout.

Again, I appreciate the feedback. I know that the standard response is that damsels are aggressive, but I've read that the Chrysiptera genus is supposed to have some peacefull species so it seems to be a bit of a grey area to me so I'm looking for your experiences and advice.

- Justin

 

[Nerd1717]

Cool layout!

 

[small alien]

Very nice rock work!

Kind of a random question, but how much are you feeding? If it's not much, try feeding small amounts a little more often and see if your fish mellow out.

Good luck.

 

[killerman]

so beatiful

 

[Homeytwist]

I usually feed twice a day, flakes and pellets in the morning, then mysis shrimp at dinner time. I will see if I can slip a few extra smaller meals in during the day, but at the moment the gramma seems completely uninterested in any food... it'll practicly hit it on the head and it's completely ignored....

 

[anbosu]

Honestly, you can't really count on any damsel being passive. Sometimes it happens, but if they switch to being aggressive you have two choices: remove the fish, or let it run the tank and kill off some other fish.