What should I Do With my damsels

B

Brico978

New Member
So here is my issue. After telling my husband a million times I did not want a salt water tank I'm much more comfortable with fresh water. We have fresh water and a koi pond that I take care of, he went and got one any way.
I told him that's fine as long as he take care of it but of course I am the one doing everything.
Well after everything was set up a d we are ready for fish he went and got four damsels even though I told him I heard there supper aggressive. We have had them in there for a while now and because we have Rock in there sometimes it takes me up to half an hour to even find them. So I feel like it would be impossible to catch them.
The problem is now he wants to put in a yellow tang which I have been told they will pick on.
My question is will the damsels me less likely to attack a full grown yellow tang rather than a baby.
 
D

DaveK

Well-Known Member
With the damsels, you have two choices. Either you keep them, and add only other very aggressive fish that will fork out with them or you remove them.

To remove them, often bottle traps are used. If that doesn't work, you have the big job of removing most of the rock and netting them. Then putting all the rock back.

As to the yellow tang, this fish requires a minimum tank size of 100 gal. Don't get the fish if your tank is smaller. Pick another fish that's all yellow.

Usually tangs can take care of themselves, so it's possible that the damsels and tang might get along. However, if they don't you are back to trapping them out or removing all the rock to remove them, amd your going top need to do it right away.
 
Pat24601

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
DaveK said:
With the damsels, you have two choices. Either you keep them, and add only other very aggressive fish that will fork out with them or you remove them.

To remove them, often bottle traps are used. If that doesn't work, you have the big job of removing most of the rock and netting them. Then putting all the rock back.

As to the yellow tang, this fish requires a minimum tank size of 100 gal. Don't get the fish if your tank is smaller. Pick another fish that's all yellow.

Usually tangs can take care of themselves, so it's possible that the damsels and tang might get along. However, if they don't you are back to trapping them out or removing all the rock to remove them, amd your going top need to do it right away.
Click to expand...

Naturally, I agree.

This is a pain in the rear no matter what you do from here. One thing I learned my first time around was you really do have to be super careful what fish you put in your tank because, unlike corals, it's really hard to get them back out.

It's also why I never get the old industry practice of doing a cycle with damsels. I mean (a) I dislike the idea of live cycling but (b) then all the sudden you have damsels in your tank you don't want. Why do that?
 
Last edited:
Uncle99

Uncle99

Well-Known Member
Yup, great advice from Dave and Paul as usual.
Be careful with Tangs. Great fish but as shown above can and will be quite territorial, never start with agressive fish as this will be a problem each time you add a less aggressive fish. Tangs last, lots of room, vary in size, color and body shape. Know clearly their feeding habits many require special diets of greens in addition to algae.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top