Damsels are D***s

[mobyfish]

Hi all, about 3 weeks ago I purchased 2 Fiji Damsels, 2 Kupang Damsels, and 1 Yellow Tail and began to quarantine them in my 20g quarantine tank. I got these fish in order for them to be the first fish introduced to my 200g Fowlr system. About 1 week ago one of my Fiji's passed. He was visibly scared of the other fish and would always hide in the corner and I only witnessed him eat once. I found him on his back with his fins torn up pretty bad. A sad day indeed. Now, one of my Kupangs seems to be the next target. His fins are torn up and he isn't swimming too well and has been displaying the same fear as my Fiji. I isolated him by putting him in a floating tupperware and will keep him there indefinitely. My question to all of you is.. Do I have the right idea of what is going on here? And am I treating this the right way? I will also attach the best picture I can get of the little guy at the moment. (In the photo you can see his caudal fin is almost completely taken off) I now know that I probably shouldn't keep 5 of these guys in such a small space together. But I was under the impression that more of them would be better because it would spread out the aggressiveness.

 

[Louis Z]

I can't tell from the pictures . But I see lots of LFS where a lot of the damsels are sick and in bad shape. Could this be an illness or do you see outright aggression.

 

[Jdub968]

It does sound like aggressive behavior, damsels some people say keep a group to spread out aggression but usually from what I’ve heard is you end up with one or a pair regardless. Unless you can get them into a qt that is large enough to keep territorially disputes to a minimum

 

[Slarti]

Well I had two and the one was also living in the back and hardly ventured to the front of the tank. No visible damage but he was definitely chased around by the second one. Ended up on the carpet and the second one died some months later, no idea why but was not my biggest lost!

 

[pfan151]

Can you get a better pic? From what I can see I’m not sure that looks like damage from aggression. I have all of those types and more in my 90g with no significant issues. The Fiji are a bit more aggressive than most Chrysiptera damsels though.