Thoughts on a 3 Striped Damsel?

[elkinsda]

What are your thoughts on a 3 striped damsel fish? I know they get aggressive, what other fish would best coincide with this damsel in a 38g reef tank.

A few fish i have in mind are:


Gold Striped Maroon Clown
Yellow Tailed Damsel
Orchid Dottyback
McCulloch's Dottback
Neon Dottyback

I'm looking to have 3 maybe 4 fish in this tank depending on the size of the fish.


-Derek

 

[Flavum]

you want to stick to one pseudo pet tank or its going to be nasty. Gold stripe might outgrow that tank, they get really big. If I were you I would bypass the 3 stripe all together.

 

[Untamed12]

In my first tank (a 30 gallon), I kept a 5 stripe damsel (very similar), yellow tail damsel and a Maroon clown. The two damsels lived 12 and 13 years in that tank. There never seemed to be too much nastiness between them.

 

[elkinsda]

So the gold striped maroon is a no go for a 38g? Yeah i would only stick with 1 dottyback those are just some i was thinking about.

 

[Flavum]

well im glad that it worked out for you untamed but IMO your experience was not the average. on average your going to run into agression with these fish in such a small tank.

 

[rob1991]

stay away from damsels all together there no good too agressive and personally i dont think there nice looking fisht ehre are plenty of other fish that are far less aggresive and much better looking fish in my opinion that will be fine in a 38 gallon.

 

[Moonstream]

I actually love damsels. they are colorful and have personalities, but they belong in aggressive tank with their potentialy homicidal nature in mind.

yellow tailed damsels are actually really peaceful IME, mine was bullied badly by my ocellaris clown and never bothered anything. they would be a great choice.

personally, I would keep 2 yellow tail damsels, 1 orchid dottyback and some kind of hawkfish. this would be an aggressive tank but the fish should be fine as long as they have space. I personally love flame hawks for reefs w/o shrimp.

 

[elkinsda]

How about a cinnamon clown instead of a gold stripe maroon?

i guess i'm sorta set on getting some sort of clown other than a percula or false perc.

 

[Toddrtrex]

I had one for a couple of years, over all it was fine. However my Clarkii pair didn't care for it one bit. It pretty much was forced to stay in the corner of the tank. If it ventured out too far, they would go after it. Perhaps, it looked too much like another clown.

 

[Untamed12]

I had the Maroon in that 30 for 6+ years before she died....Even then, I would not have said that she got too large for the tank. Then I got a 2nd one that has since moved into my 400. While the can get larger than other clowns, they don't do so very quickly.

I think if you found a smaller one, they could be happy for many, many years in a 30. That was certainly my experience anyway.

 

[Chihuahua6]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13336357#post13336357 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Moonstream
I actually love damsels. they are colorful and have personalities, but they belong in aggressive tank with their potentialy homicidal nature in mind.

yellow tailed damsels are actually really peaceful IME, mine was bullied badly by my ocellaris clown and never bothered anything. they would be a great choice.

personally, I would keep 2 yellow tail damsels, 1 orchid dottyback and some kind of hawkfish. this would be an aggressive tank but the fish should be fine as long as they have space. I personally love flame hawks for reefs w/o shrimp.

I totally agree with the above post. I actually have two YT Damsels, a Flame Hawkfish and a Yellow Tang (temporary for the Tang) in my 29 gal tank. They get along well.

 

[Bax]

If you do add the damsels, add them last. I don't think, once established, they will tolerate a nother damsel or a dottyback, or anyhting smaller than them to be added. They are very territorial and a 38 will be their teritory if they are there first.