Why are damsels not appreciated?

[stainless_wm]

As a new guy here I have some thoughts about Damsels. I have (2) Four stripe damsels in a 35 with 2 spotted cardinals, a chromis and a lawnmower blenney. The damsels are active, chasing every one around and what not, I think everybody is fast enough to escape harm. I really enjoy them though, it makes for a lively tank.

As far as fish being territorial though, it has always been my belief that if you provide enough cover for everybody and do not over stock, you should be good.
I have heard that you can rearrange the tank when you put in a new guy, this can disrupt the defined territory, while every one adjusts.

As far as using them to cycle, it is just my opinion (remember, I am new to this hobby) but, I feel that if you take your time with it and do not add too many fish at once, you should have very minimal die off.

I just set this tank up in June and have only lost 2 chromis. I think sometimes people try to cycle too fast and they have a lot of die off.

But thats just me,

 

[KMyers18]

yes, but He didn't intend for us to be irresponsible...

Who is to decide what is irresponsible thoe??

Viruses and bacteria "eat" at us all the time and in some cases we have no defense, does that mean we are still at the top of the food chain

That is not a very intelligent comment!

I will say this you guys do your aqauriums like you want and i will do mine how i want and leave it at that. Im not real big on spending a couple thousand on a tank and then putting a dead shrimp in it to look at floating around for weeks on end till it cycles. If you like looking at dead shrimp then then good for you as for me i will use damsels or any other fish for that matter.

 

[TJ]

I had a striped damsel that was with us from day 1. Been through everything- cycling, algae blooms, power outages, ick outbreaks... you name it. When we consolidated our tanks to the 240, I knew I was gonna want and get some other fish- and he was already, justifiably so, extremely territorial. So I almost didn't put him in- but....seniment won out and I put him in. I had fish from a 100, 75, & 20g., and put them all together in this 240- plenty of swimming room, plenty of hiding places, plenty of spots where they could "claim"... but no, he wanted to chase and nip at all the clowns, two of which came from his tank and had been fine with for 5 years or better. I added a coral beauty and a bi-color angel- he had the coral beauty chewed to pieces. It's a long and quite humorous story of our endeavors to get him out of the tank. But we finally did on night, or morning- about 2:00 a.m., after half of my carefully aquasculptured rock was in rubbermaid tubs again, got that little sucker out. He went temporarily into the sump, till we could take him and a big Clarki Clown to the LFS and trade in. I still wish I'd kept maybe the 20 gallon to keep the two of them, because we did have them for so many years and they were quite fat and healthy... by the way, the striped's name was Sadaam, if that tells you anything. So... all that to say this- damsels are very cool fish, but if you want to add different tankmates later, especially ones that about the size of damsels, they probably won't get any rest! I still want to get another 15 or 20g. just to have all kinds of small damsels in. They are cute and funny.

 

[coolchinchilla]

Im not real big on spending a couple thousand on a tank and then putting a dead shrimp in it to look at floating around for weeks on end till it cycles.

Who said you had to use a dead shrimp? I dose in pure ammonia. Ammonia is much easier, no stench, no ugly display, easy to control. Ammonia is the way to go. 8)

 

[Feron]

I have a 20g I set up to grow macros in.. I decided instead of dosing chems I'd get damsels to feed the plants..
So I went to the lfs and got me 6 damsels, 2 striped sgts 2 dominos and 2 yellowtail.

One of the striped sgts was rather large...and grew fast cause he was the bully..
came home last night to see him chewing on his fellow striped (which was considerably smaller).
Looked like he had been picking on him all day..

Needless to say, there are now just 4 damsels in the macro tank (and they seem quite happy to share the food unlike the stripeds).