When Good Damsels Go Bad (Film at 11)

ok.. seriously... it's a cute little yellow tail, too small to hurt me or
anything else in the tank, but it ATTACKED ME today! I had my hand in
pulling out bits of algae (with my two buckets of freshwater sitting handily
by of course). I had noticed yesterday while I was doing some other cleaning
in there that the crushed coral down in one front bottom corner looked like
it had been blown out, like it does sometimes when the pump slips and points
down at the bottom.. I swished it around real quick and covered up the
*hole*.. was in this morning pulling algae and noticed it was cleared out
again. Assuming it had happend when I was cleaning off the pump intake, I
swished the substrate around again and covered it up but while I was doing
it this time, the one damsel that hangs out down there headbutted my hand..
several times. And now it is in the process of moving the bits back out of
the corner.. by mouth, one piece at a time. Now my Oscars do this routinely
just to make a mess in their tank and **** me off.. but what is with this
damsel? It is the smaller of the two I have and the larger is looking rather
suspiciously fat.. I don't know anything about their breeding habits. I kind
of feel badly about covering up the spot beccause it had to have taken the
poor thing a long time to move all that stuff out! Do they ever breed
successfully in home aquariums? I can't imagine anything surviving in there
between the two clowns and the hermits and the bristle worms.. not sure if
the yellow tang would bother them or not. I am tempted to put them into the
10 gallon but I still worry about that tank being stable enough.

Teeb

all the damsels I have do this same thing, I don't believe it to be a
breading habit just making a home.

I had yellow tailed damsels spawn and I even raised 3 out of the 200 or so
that hatched out (feeding these teeny, tiny, micro,,,,,,,,,,,,,did I mention
they were small, really little fish?...........can be a pain in the a$$.)
and they did all their "nesting" upside down on a dead coral head they
cleaned off that was about 3" above the CC. they would swim in and turn
upside down to do their business and after about a week or so the eggs
(which they fanned constantly) started filling out to where you can see eyes
in them. I then removed them to a 10 gal with an air stone next to them and
they hatched a week or so later.


and as for your attack, my blue devil will take pieces of the CC and swim
with it in mouth until he finds the chocolate chip star and "bomb" him with
the rocks............guess we know why he's called a devil now huh?

kc

LOL.. well thanks for the info. I have so many freshwater fish and they all
do different things; the Jack Dempsey pair I had DID clear out the gravel
down to the bare glass and laid eggs on it.. apparently because none of the
rock in the tank was good enough for them. I just had no idea what the
damsel might be doing.

Teeb

"Dragon Slayer" wrote in message
...
all the damsels I have do this same thing, I don't believe it to be a
breading habit just making a home.

I had yellow tailed damsels spawn and I even raised 3 out of the 200 or so
that hatched out (feeding these teeny, tiny, micro,,,,,,,,,,,,,did I
mention
they were small, really little fish?...........can be a pain in the a$$.)
and they did all their "nesting" upside down on a dead coral head they
cleaned off that was about 3" above the CC. they would swim in and turn
upside down to do their business and after about a week or so the eggs
(which they fanned constantly) started filling out to where you can see
eyes
in them. I then removed them to a 10 gal with an air stone next to them
and
they hatched a week or so later.


and as for your attack, my blue devil will take pieces of the CC and swim
with it in mouth until he finds the chocolate chip star and "bomb" him
with
the rocks............guess we know why he's called a devil now huh?

kc