School of yellow tail damsels

[jacobl]

Need advice, I bought used 120 gallon tank that comes with fish. It has Blue tank, Powder Blue tang and 12 yellow tail damsels. Yes, 12 of them.
I want to build a mixed reef tank with this tank, and my LFS is holding these fishes. Should I put the yellow tail damsels or not at all.

I want to add: 1 clown fish and maybe Flame angel. Will these be too much fish in the tank if I put all 12 damsels back. Should I just sell most and keep like 3?


Thanks much for the advice.

 

[Sounds Fishy]

I would sell all of them.

 

[reefwiser]

They will fight till there is one mean one left.

 

[collegereefs]

If you keep the damsels you will likely end up with 2 pairs, maybe 3. Each pair will set up a territory and defend it from other yellow tailed damsels. The unpaired damsels or submissive pairs will probably become confined to a small territory and not have a good time. Yellow tailed damsels tend to be a more peaceful species of damsels.

The blue tang will outgrow your aquarium. The blue tang has potential to reach 1' in length which would be to long to be comfortably housed in your aquarium, even if it is a 6' 120 gallon. The powder blue tang could be housed in your aquarium, but tangs from the acanthurus family are known to become aggressive in smaller aquarium and even in larger aquariums they can be a menace. I would recommend replacing your tangs with tangs from the zebrasoma family or ctenochaetus family. Tangs from these families tend to fair better in smaller aquariums.

As far as the stocking goes, it depends on how many damsels you end up keeping. If you only keep a pair or two, you could potentially add a pair of clownfish and a pair of flame angles if you wanted.