Nate41590

Well i bought three blue damsels and put them in my tank once it was cycled. there is 2 that are equally sized, but one that is a little bigger. The biggest one chases the other two. He actually ate half of the tail fin's of one of the fish, and caused it to get a big cut on the side of its body. this has been a few days ago, and it is doing much better. My question though is will these damsels be mean to a smaller clownfish? that was what i was planning on adding next. But my LFS only has really small ones, smaller than the damsels. And i dont want him to get beat up. I actually tried to catch the big damsel to return it, but they are like rockets in the water.

nate21887

damsels are very aggresive fish and yes most likely the clown will get beat up by the damsels. also if you return the larger one, one of the others will most likely step up in his place and be just as mean. if you want to try to keep the 2 like size ones there may be a more possible chance for the clown but it is very unlikely. also if you are dead set on keepin the damsels you might want to research compatible fish on here or online for better suited tank mates. hope this helps and good luck!

Nate41590

thanks for your reply. and no im not really dead set on keeping them. they are a beautiful active fish, but i just got them on the recommendation from the LFS. Since my tank has just finished its cycle and isnt established yet. I am however dead set on a clownfish, so im not sure what to do. the damsels are so freakin hard to catch. i dont know what to do

Morgan111

use a dual net system and try to sneak up on them at night when they are resting... no guarntees but might help get them out lol good luck.

locoyo386

Hi there, first of the bat, you picked some of the most agressive damsels. In my experiecen the blue devil and the three stripe and the four stripe damsels are among the most aggressive ones. Well with that said, let me remnd you that the clownfish are also damsels. Not sure how big your tank is, but I would start there. I have a marron clownfish that beats the heck out of the damsels. Well you can look into a true percula or marron, they should be fine. Also if it is an ascellaris, they should not be more than half it size. In other words of the smallest damsel is bigger than the clownfsih by more than half, they mostlikely will be the target. One thing you can do is put a devider in the tank to keep the clownfish untill it acclimates to the tank, a few weeks. After a while of seeing the damsels he might be able to defend itself. Note that in this case it is hard to really predict what will happen.

Nate41590

ok..i'll try again to catch them. they just always jet into the live rock....which i DONT want to move. although i think i might have to because i dont know if their are pass-throughs big enough for my tang's in the future. (90 gallon tank). im not sure if that is necessary or not. there is one, maybe two. I'll probably just wait and try to buy a larger clown. Thanks for your help guys. any thoughts on the rock scape change? I just dont want to cloud my water again...i have worked so hard to get it clear

nate21887

gentle easy movements should be the ticket if most of the small debris has filtered out you should be able to move stuff gently around, some stir up will be natural but should settle within a couple hours.