CRY! 
I think we have THE worst luck with damsel fish...
I first introduced a yellow tail damsel to our newly established tank. The water parms were fine, (zero ammonia, zero nitrite, zero phosphate) and it already housed two clowns and a couple of shrimps and snails, all of which were doing great. I acclimated the damsel in the normal way, over a 45 minute period. It was doing fine, appeared to be settling in OK, eating everything I put in front of it, it wasn't getting bullied by the clowns, it appeared disease free, and it had plenty of rock cover, and was swimming about and behaving normally... A week later, it was dead. Perfectly alive one evening, stone dead the next day...
We moved on, and got a bicolour dottyback and a yellow tang, and a cleaner shrimp. They're all doing great; the dottyback has grown a little bit, and so have the clowns. No disease, they're all eating and all look healthy (The tang in particular is a real pig at feeding times!!). Three weeks ago, we got a small humbug damsel fish and a yellow bellied damsel fish, carefully acclimated them, and introduced them to the tank together.
Unfortunately, the bicolour dottyback began to bully *both* damselfish
Why? they don't even have the same colouration and bodyshapes...I knew the dottybacks were a bit pugnacious, but to other species? The tang and the clowns completely ignored them....
So our lovely little humbug died from stress before I could remove him
Our yellow bellied damsel eventually settled in, and the dottyback basically stopped bullying him, but the dotty would still swim over to him to check him out sort of thing...anyhow, he started digging a cave under some rock and would sleep there at night. He was fine last night, This morning I get a panicked call from my significant other, saying that the damsel fish is lying on the gravel on its side, looking very distressed, breathing rapidly, almost dead. An hour layer she called again to say that it was dead......
I had a look at him this evening and a large chunk of his tail is missing....
Now, I have bristleworms in the tank, and I noticed one of them hanging around near where the damsel fish used to sleep. What's the chance that a bristleworm decided to have a midnight snack and this freaked out the damselfish so much the stress killed it? Or was it the dottyback?
I went with damsel fish coz I always thought they were a 'safe' bet, i.e. hardy and easy to keep. Now I'm afraid to add another fish because I'm worried that the dottyback will bully it. Will they bully bigger fish? Apart from tearing the tank down, there's no way I could ever catch the dottyback and remove him....
Maybe I should just forget about adding one more fish and concentrate on inverts instead....
I think we have THE worst luck with damsel fish...
I first introduced a yellow tail damsel to our newly established tank. The water parms were fine, (zero ammonia, zero nitrite, zero phosphate) and it already housed two clowns and a couple of shrimps and snails, all of which were doing great. I acclimated the damsel in the normal way, over a 45 minute period. It was doing fine, appeared to be settling in OK, eating everything I put in front of it, it wasn't getting bullied by the clowns, it appeared disease free, and it had plenty of rock cover, and was swimming about and behaving normally... A week later, it was dead. Perfectly alive one evening, stone dead the next day...
We moved on, and got a bicolour dottyback and a yellow tang, and a cleaner shrimp. They're all doing great; the dottyback has grown a little bit, and so have the clowns. No disease, they're all eating and all look healthy (The tang in particular is a real pig at feeding times!!). Three weeks ago, we got a small humbug damsel fish and a yellow bellied damsel fish, carefully acclimated them, and introduced them to the tank together.
Unfortunately, the bicolour dottyback began to bully *both* damselfish
Why? they don't even have the same colouration and bodyshapes...I knew the dottybacks were a bit pugnacious, but to other species? The tang and the clowns completely ignored them....So our lovely little humbug died from stress before I could remove him
Our yellow bellied damsel eventually settled in, and the dottyback basically stopped bullying him, but the dotty would still swim over to him to check him out sort of thing...anyhow, he started digging a cave under some rock and would sleep there at night. He was fine last night, This morning I get a panicked call from my significant other, saying that the damsel fish is lying on the gravel on its side, looking very distressed, breathing rapidly, almost dead. An hour layer she called again to say that it was dead......
I had a look at him this evening and a large chunk of his tail is missing....
Now, I have bristleworms in the tank, and I noticed one of them hanging around near where the damsel fish used to sleep. What's the chance that a bristleworm decided to have a midnight snack and this freaked out the damselfish so much the stress killed it? Or was it the dottyback?
I went with damsel fish coz I always thought they were a 'safe' bet, i.e. hardy and easy to keep. Now I'm afraid to add another fish because I'm worried that the dottyback will bully it. Will they bully bigger fish? Apart from tearing the tank down, there's no way I could ever catch the dottyback and remove him....
Maybe I should just forget about adding one more fish and concentrate on inverts instead....
