Keeping fish in pairs and groups

Peter Schmiedel

New member
Hi,

I would like to start this thread to share knowledge in order to improve natural fish keeping. I have several tanks and my main tank is about 320 g.

The following fish I keep in pairs and could get them to mate:

Liopoproma rubre - Swiss guard bass
Liopoproma swalesi - ?
Synchiropus splendidus - mandarin
Synchiropus stellatus - red scooter blenny
Oxycirrhites typus - long nose hawk fish
Zebrasoma flavescens - yellow tang
Centropyge argi - coral beauty

These ones I have two or more of, but cant ensure that they are male / female because I have not seen mating or eggs yet.

Esenuis bicolor - bicolor blenny
Acreichthys tomentosus
Ctenochaetus hawaiiensis
Gramma loreto - royal gramma
Centroypge loriculus - flame angel
Gobisoma randalli

In group I keep:

Pseudocheilinus hexataenia (1,2) - six line wrasse (mating regular)
Pseudanthias parvirostris (2,6) - mating regular


This ones I tried to buddy up and failed:

Chelmon rostratus - I had the rescue the smaller one otherwise it would have been killed within hours

Salarias fasciatus - The first two fish I place. Although I still believe that In have tow different sex the male (?) cased the female(?) that much that I took her out after three days.

Pomacanthus navarchus - Two juvenile fish have been placed together. The bigger one cased the smaller one so that he was only allowed to come out for food. Had to get one out after the situation did not improve within 5 months.

Siganus vulpinus - Here to I started with two small fish. They lived together for about one year and from one day to another they started fighting like hell. Had no chance to get one out and one got killed within 24 hours!

Pseudojuloides severnsi - The female of this very nice wrasse converted to a male and the following fighting ended after a few weeks with one fish outside of the tank.

What ids the current status in the US regarding keeping coral fish in pairs / groups?

What are your personal experiences?

Would you like to keep your fish in a more natural way and enable them to have social interaction?

Sorry for the long posting, some spelling errors (but I guess in German it would be less fun for you :D) and the use of the scientific names but most of the US common names I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know.
 
I have a 209g with a pair of Queen Triggers (6 inches) and a pair of Niger Triggers (5 inches). They are not officially pairs yet cause they are still small and a lot could happen when they grow. I think the Queens might remain a pair since the slightly larger one always looks out for the slightly smaller one. If one of the other fish is harassing her then the larger one will come in and take care of the situation. I have 3 Bar gobies (seperate tank) and they bred about a year ago but haven't done it since. That is the only pairs I have since I keep fish that are not supposed to pair in general so generally don't try but the the larger Queen my ex-boyfriend bought for me knowing I loved triggs even though I already had one. Anyway, hope this helps and congratulations with all your sucess. That is amazing!
 
Hi,

Which tiggers you have in which of your tanks?

Odonus niger is easy to keep with more than one as they life in big groups and feed mainly on plankton.

But with the Queen (guess this is Balistoides vetula??) you will for sure get a problem. Guess you know how big they can get? And that the have huge teritories? I am not a trigger specialist but would guess that as soon as they are getting out of the juvenile status they will start a big fight.

The blue throat is also one you can easy keep as a pair. Specially as they are easy to sex. Unfortunately the femal is not as nice colored as the male.

But I have a question: How do you maintain the No3 and Po4 in normal levels? I expext your fish eat and digest quite some food which has bad impact on the above mentioned parameter.
 
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Hi Peter,
I love keeping fish in pairs or groups actually. Right now i dont have any pairs but i want to have later. I want royal dottyback, longnose hawk, skunk clown, dwarf angel and marine betta pairs. My tank is 65 gal and dont think can hold all of these. Maybe i can grow these first and few years later when i set up a bigger tank, i can buy their pairs?

Do u have any fries?
 
Yes the Queens are Balistes vetula, and yes I do know they can and will get to 2 feet in length. Since I'm at college I have my mom watch them for me and so far they are doing fine together. And like I said earlier I know all bets are off when they grow a bit, but so far they are buddy buddy and protect one another. In the 209 I have the 2 Queens, 2 Nigers, Clown, Blue Line and Huma along with some lg wrasses, and a Zebra Moray Eel. I plan on buying 1-2 125's within the next year to divide out some of the triggs as they mature. I plan on leaving the Queens together as long as I possibly can (once they start going after one another they will be moved) cause they really do enjoy one anothers company. Then I have the Halfmoon and Blue Throat in the 55 (when I get 1 of the 125's the Blue Throat will move up and will probably put the Huma with him- I tried the Blue in the 209 but the Nigers were not thrilled at all so he got removed quickly). Then the Undulate is by himself in the 55. On the 209 I do 25 percent water changes every other week. Plus there is a fully functional Protein skimmer along with 30g sump and 220lbs of Live rock, and I'm planning on adding a 30g refugium to do a deep sand bed. This way I can cut water changes to 1 a month. Anyway, hope this helps.
 
Hi Peter,

Fascinating post, have you managed to raise any of the resulting fry?

I attended a seminar by Dr Thaler last year and she inspired me to try keeping pairs of fish rather than just the one specimen. :D Up to now I've only tried a pair of spotted Mandarins, S. picturatus. They spawn regularly, are an absolute delight to watch and definitely make me want to try another pair of something.

One of the possibilities is adding a 'friend' for my resident Scarlet Hawkfish, N. armatus. I've had this Hawk for almost 9 years now and wonder how it'll react to the introduction of another hawk. :eek: What would you advise?

Regards

Lisa
 
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Hi Lisa,

cool I did not know that Ellen Thaler is also known at your end of the world :D - she is the first one who figured out that social interaction is very important for the fish.

It is alsmost impossible to raise them if you have a job where you are not hoem every day. I am an consultant and travel a lot. I bread Lsymatha wurdemani (pepermint shrimp) and this is already very difficult. My next target is bread dotty backs :)

Should be no problem to add another N. armatus, but take care that it is significant smaller! I have a couple of the long nosen hawk fish

korallenwaechter.jpg


This is HIM, he is much smaller than her
To bad that I dont have all the pics on my office computer;)
 
Hi again,

Thanks, I figured as much. I'll keep my eye out for a much smaller specimen then. :)

Regards

Lisa
 
I have the following groupings in my current tank:

Synchiropus picturatus (2) - spotted mandarin (spawning regulatrly)
Gobiosoma oceanops (was 2) - blue cleaner goby (were spawning regularly, lost female recently due to clam - need to re-pair)
Neocirrhites armatus (2) - flame hawkfish (paired but no sign of spawning yet)
Amphiprion ocellaris (2) - common clownfish (spawning regularly)
Chromis viridis (8) - blue-green chromis (spawn regularly)
Pseudanthias parvirostris (9) - no sign of spawning yet

I still have a couple of other fish I would like to pair up but haven't found suitable new introductions yet.
 
Hi Simon.

weird that we have the same Pseudanthias but they dont spawn at your end. Do you have a blue light phase or moonlight installed? Do you know if your male(s) is a primary male or did it migrate to a male from one of your females?

Maybe we should compare tank size and water flow etc to find out if there is any major diffrence?

The Chromis I forgot to mention on my list above - I use the fry as perfect Acropora food :)

Hey just saw that you live rather close - compared to the rest. Where in the UK?
 
Simon,

just checked your website :)

The only difference I can see is that I have more stones and you have more swim space. And that you have a species of "Anthias" together with them.

I dont know the deltec pumps as I prefere Red Dragon. What is the total waterflow per hour? I have 32.000 Liter / hour
 
LisaP said:

Would you try pairing up Majestic (P. navarchus) angels again?
Lisa

Hi Lisa,

NO! Three reasons for that:

* Seeing them during diving you realize how big their territory is. And we can never fulfil that needs

* I learnd that the male might have a territory which includes several females.

* I am currently changing my philosophie of fish keeping and migrate to only very small fish. Awaiting my order of small gobies next week :)

Happy WE :)
 
Peter,

I have around 24,000lph total flow. I have a moonlight and a dawn dusk simulation with dimming T5s.

I had to add the Anthias in small groups of 3-4 or so at a time as the LFS could only get hold of them ocassionally (on adding the later groups I lost some of the new group, I presume due to the already established heirachy). It took 6 months or so to build up the group. I think there are 3 males in the group. Maybe they need longer together before spawning behaviour begins. How long have you had the Anthias been together before they started to spawn?

I did have a pair of purple firefish (Nemateleotris decora) but after around 3 months they decided to fight. One jumped down the overflow and went into the sump. Luckily, I managed to net it and return it to the shop.



P.S. Nice website. I remember looking at it when I was researching tanks. I have a Red Dragon pump as a spare (nice pump) but use it for mixing my fresh saltwater at the moment.

Lisa,

One of the gobies decided to make the clam into a home (not sure why as they had been happy for 8 months with a cave). It would dart in and out of the clam just getting out before it shut. Then, one morning I found the goby next to the clam dead and it appeared to have a very big dent in it as if the clam had closed and trapped it.
 
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What an excellent thread!

I have of late become very interested in keeping fish in pairs or groups.

I would like to find a female green mandarin for my male, but I can't seem to find one at the store here that I am sure is a female, they all have long dorsal spines. I wonder if there is a mail order outlet that can reliable sex them for me.


Anyway, I currently have two pairs of tomatoe clowns.

One pair of Banggai cardinals,

One pair of flame angelfish.
 
Simon,

I also added mine in two lots. First 1.3 and then again 1.3. The later male was smaller but had much intensive color. But he never took over the female group.

I dont recall that they started spanwing infore there where 8 ???

Recentlz It lost 6 of them as I forgot to switch the IKS computer back to contral mode after maintainence and the temperatur rose to high. Obviously these Anthias come form cooler and deeper water. All other fish and corals had no problem.

I stopped keeping Nemateleotris as sooner or later thez always change sex and start fighting
 
peter, do you know if you can keep possum wrasse (wetmorella) species in pairs?i haven't found any info about this fish and its habits
 
Hi,

good question! I honestly have no idea. All I know about the genus Wetmorella ist that they are living in caves and advoid light. They are very shy and should not be keep with other fast eating or swimming fish. As this fish is rare here I did not get my hands on therm yet. But it is planned.

In on of the monthly german magazins was recently an article about one species. I will try to look it up.

Please REMINDme if you dont get an answer withhin two days.
 
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