Damsel tank, large dascyllus---safe with shrimp?

[Sk8r]

Generally in a 100 gallon tank, which this is, damsels won't bother non-damsels (except chromis)---but I've never had one this large (4.5") and I am having to choose between pep shrimp (spendy, in enough numbers to hit on one that will eat aiptasia) or a matted filefish, which the damsels may even pal around with, who may or may not eat them. I'd kind of prefer the shrimp, because they won't generally eat (may pester but won't harm) corals, while filefish may at least ding softies (mine are stony, but I have no data on their habits with stony coral.)

In other words, between the shrimp and the filefish---anybody have experience with survival of shrimp with big damsels, or with filefish habits with stony coral?

 

[ThRoewer]

I had a fully grown spawning pair of Dascyllus trimaculatus, but never tried to add anything else to their 250 gallon tank.
Though I somewhat doubt that they would go after the shrimp if fed well enough. Even at maximum size their mouths are rather small.

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

 

[saf1]

Azure's and Talbots are what I own. When I had the trio of Talbot's they left my pair of peppermints alone. About that same time I also had a matted filefish. I really enjoyed that fish. It ate everything including the aiptasia. Peppermints didn't really do much although I only had a pair. I did see one pick at a smaller size but the bulk of the work was done by the matted.

I own Hammers, large green button polyps, mushrooms, kenya tree, golden leather, 5 or 6 rose bubble tips, those tiny blue/purple clove things, and some zoas. Oh, and some green star polyps. So LPS and softies. I had the file fish for about 4 years and it was pretty well behaved for the most part. I would see it nip at the hammers but they are large enough to handle it. I do think it cleared out my zoa's but that didn't matter much to me - nothing prized. One day I picked up some Xenia and it went right for it - the matted filefish that is. I sort of ignored it. Then the next day it again went after the Xenia.

Since it was a starter colony I just bought from ORA I wanted to give it a chance to spread a bit so I gave away the matted filefish. I guess in short this doesn't really help you much outside mine:

Cleared the aiptasia.
Ate Zoa's and Xenia.
Picked on my hammers.
Left every fish and shrimp alone.
Ate everything other fish did to include Nori.

All around great and would still have it today if it wasn't for the picking on my new Xenia patch. Go figure.

 

[OrionN]

I love my CBB. Beautiful fist that eat all my aptasia. I know that was not what you asked but perhaps you did not considered.

 

[Sk8r]

I'm not sure of the behavior of the damsels toward a copperband butterfly. I think they're beautiful, but I don't know the mix.