WHY damsels ???!

I rather enjoy watching my yellow tail damsels -I have 2 of them. They know darn well to stay away from my maroon clown, as well -he'll give them hell if they come near him or his anemone, so they just ... stay away. That problem worked itself out naturally.

They like rearranging the sand and are colorful, fun fish. I had thought about trading them in, but I just can't.

 

When I first started my 29gal. I was told by fellow reefers STAY away from damsels! They are very aggresive & a pain to catch. So I never got any. Though from what I'm reading I didn't know that my clowns were damsels too.. People tend to use damsels to establish a new tank because they are a very hardy fish..

 

If you're wanting to pair up a clown, all you do is get a smaller clown to add to your tank. I won't guarentee the damsel won't terrorize them both though.

We actually did most the cycling with table shrimp, but 10 years ago everyone said add a pretty blue damsel, they get along fine. I just learned that I won't go through that again personally unless I have agressive fish in the tank already.

I would never put a clown through a cycle on purpose , but we did have a tank melt...went on vacation, forgot to leave airconditioning on once...clown lived.....then a couple of years later had another major mishap with lysol being used downstairs and around the corner it floated upstairs and killed everything...but same clown was picked up off rock thrown into freshly made saltwater and lived to lay eggs again.

They are hardy but the ocell and percs I think are to docile. My momma will defend her area but I don't want them continually harrased by anything.

 

I have 2 yellow tails in my tank ;D. They are my tank's "Welcoming Commitee".
Point blank to a newbie a damsel is fine. Cheaper than dirt (ok cheaper than live sand) and somewhat hardy. So when the newbie is learning, doesn't know how to maintain stable parameters, and makes mistakes, he only risks losing a $4 fish and gaining experience. Did you shell out $10K the first time you bought a stock or sat at a poker table?
There's lots of fishtraps you can buy or build to get them out if you change your mind - it's not the end of the world and nothing to rip your rock out of the tank over.

 

Bogie, I dissagree. We tried for over a month with food traps before we had to literally take out 120# of live rock to catch that sucker. Lights go down and he would go to back of tank, lights on, he would see our hands near the water. He was tearing up my percula clowns which I wanted to keep. One of the clowns I still have 8 years old. I still say table shimp w/ create the amon. spike you want and you wont kill anything in the process.

 

I have yet to hear anyone cycle without fish. I have never cycled with fish just live rock. If you want to produce waste just feed the tank once a week. I don't see why you must make a fish suffer through a cycle. Just don't be so impatient

 

??? We cycled for one week with grocery store shrimp, then put the clowns in after that. Our cycle only lasted 1.5 weeks.

 

Well, two things on that one. First off, impatient has nothing to do with the fish method. The fish method takes longer than the waste/rot method (if done correctly).
And, study after study has proven that the waste method has a MUCH larger percentage of a early crash rate than cycling with a fish. A fish brings a nice, constant, steady supply of ammonia to establish a steady long running bacteria colony. The rapid increase and decrease of ammonia using the waste method makes for a much shakier bacterial presence.
Also, damsels (particularly the blue and yellow tailed) are perfectly adaptable to survive during normal cycling parameters. They don't suffer.
Just my two cents.

 

Sorry......I still agree to disagree, and I can do that because I started the thread.lol. They do suffer, it's just it's not as noticable because their **itty fish. lol.

 

What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, right? There are some exceptions to that...but we're not going to go there.

I guess it comes down to two questions.
A) Do you want to cycle with a fish or not?
now, let's say, they want to cycle with a fish because they don't want to stare at an empty tank for an unknown amount of time.

So that brings us to the next question.

B) What do you want to cycle with? You could cycle with something like a $50 Powder Tang that probably wouldn't make it through the cycle, or you could cycle with a $4 Damsel that can live through almost anything, and if he doesn't make it, it's only 4 dollars.

The answer to most cheapo fish cycling is "damsel".