ECU_Pirate
New member
I currently have the following fish. Temperaments are as per Liveaquaria.
3 Blue Sapphire Damsels (peaceful)
1 Midas Blenny (peaceful)
1 tiny juvenile Blue Green Reef Chromis (peaceful)
1 traditional Ocellaris Clownfish (peaceful)
1 tiny juvenile Black & White Ocellaris Clownfish (peaceful)
2 Banggai Cardinalfish (semi-aggressive)
1 Bristletooth Tomini Tang (semi-aggressive)
1 female possibly morphing to male Lyretail Anthias (semi-aggressive)
Former inhabitants:
1 presumed dead Royal Gramma Basslet (peaceful, disappeared the day after the anthias, chromis, and, a scissortail dartfish were added)
1 Banggai Cardinalfish (semi-aggressive, returned to LFS when he stopped eating and stayed hidden under a rock. Wasn't sure if he was being bullied by the other 2, so I decided better safe than sorry and got him out of there and back to LFS where he could go to a better home)
1 deceased female Lyretail Anthias (semi-aggressive, disappeared the night she was added and found in a rock 2 days later)
1 male Lyretail Anthias (semi-aggressive, returned to LFS after 6 days of being chased relentlessly by the established female anthias and tang, stopped eating and started rapidly showing signs of stress)
2 deceased Scissortail Dartfish (peaceful, they both jumped. We started out with one and figured since our tank had a canopy that he'd be okay, but we found him behind the tank 3 days after he was added. We covered the exposed back of the tank with mesh screen material (like for windows) and duct tape. Replaced the scissortail, but a couple of weeks later found the new one in the EXACT same spot as the first)
Outside of the horrible and hopefully isolated incident of the newly added male and female anthias declining in health and dying, respectively, I haven't seen much aggression. The largest of the 3 damsels is a loner (the other 2 hang together) and he will occasionally chase the other 2 but his main target is the blue green reef chromis. He chases but never catches the chromis. Seems like he doesn't want the chromis to cross a rock arch near the middle of the tank, so the chromis generally stays on one side. The chromis shows no signs of stress whatsoever. The 2 Banggai cardinalfish generally stay on opposite sides of the tank. I occasionally see some chasing between the 2 of them, but I can't tell them apart so I'm not always sure who is doing the chasing. The Midas blenny, anthias, and tang will occasionally do some minor chasing amongst themselves, often at feeding if they get too much in each other's way.
I'm sorry for all the details and very lengthy post, but I'd love your opinions on if what I've described is normal behavior of a tank with a mixture of peaceful and semi-aggressive fish. In the future I'd like to add a clown goby, jawfish, wrasse, spotbreast angelfish, zoster butterfly, and replacement basslet & dartfish (once we get the canopy situation figured out), but for now we've decided to take things a bit slower, as we know we should.
3 Blue Sapphire Damsels (peaceful)
1 Midas Blenny (peaceful)
1 tiny juvenile Blue Green Reef Chromis (peaceful)
1 traditional Ocellaris Clownfish (peaceful)
1 tiny juvenile Black & White Ocellaris Clownfish (peaceful)
2 Banggai Cardinalfish (semi-aggressive)
1 Bristletooth Tomini Tang (semi-aggressive)
1 female possibly morphing to male Lyretail Anthias (semi-aggressive)
Former inhabitants:
1 presumed dead Royal Gramma Basslet (peaceful, disappeared the day after the anthias, chromis, and, a scissortail dartfish were added)
1 Banggai Cardinalfish (semi-aggressive, returned to LFS when he stopped eating and stayed hidden under a rock. Wasn't sure if he was being bullied by the other 2, so I decided better safe than sorry and got him out of there and back to LFS where he could go to a better home)
1 deceased female Lyretail Anthias (semi-aggressive, disappeared the night she was added and found in a rock 2 days later)
1 male Lyretail Anthias (semi-aggressive, returned to LFS after 6 days of being chased relentlessly by the established female anthias and tang, stopped eating and started rapidly showing signs of stress)
2 deceased Scissortail Dartfish (peaceful, they both jumped. We started out with one and figured since our tank had a canopy that he'd be okay, but we found him behind the tank 3 days after he was added. We covered the exposed back of the tank with mesh screen material (like for windows) and duct tape. Replaced the scissortail, but a couple of weeks later found the new one in the EXACT same spot as the first)
Outside of the horrible and hopefully isolated incident of the newly added male and female anthias declining in health and dying, respectively, I haven't seen much aggression. The largest of the 3 damsels is a loner (the other 2 hang together) and he will occasionally chase the other 2 but his main target is the blue green reef chromis. He chases but never catches the chromis. Seems like he doesn't want the chromis to cross a rock arch near the middle of the tank, so the chromis generally stays on one side. The chromis shows no signs of stress whatsoever. The 2 Banggai cardinalfish generally stay on opposite sides of the tank. I occasionally see some chasing between the 2 of them, but I can't tell them apart so I'm not always sure who is doing the chasing. The Midas blenny, anthias, and tang will occasionally do some minor chasing amongst themselves, often at feeding if they get too much in each other's way.
I'm sorry for all the details and very lengthy post, but I'd love your opinions on if what I've described is normal behavior of a tank with a mixture of peaceful and semi-aggressive fish. In the future I'd like to add a clown goby, jawfish, wrasse, spotbreast angelfish, zoster butterfly, and replacement basslet & dartfish (once we get the canopy situation figured out), but for now we've decided to take things a bit slower, as we know we should.
