How to catch a Damsil?

I have never understood what a starter fish is. Is it a fish that is
cheap so therefore good to start with just incase yur not dead on with
things in the tank, or is it good because its hardy and takes more of
a beating so its generally used to cycling a tank as well which in my
opinion is not right since live rock is perfectly capable to initiate
a cycle.

I can honestly say I have only ever had one fish in the damsel family,
a blue devil, and it was bought by my son and was placed in the one
tank without my or the wifes permission. It was only a tiny little
thing of about 1" length and he put it in a fishless PICO sized 2 gal
tank. Looked cool but in short order it needed to come out and that
presented a challenge. ANyway, with as much bad publicity with damsels
I just do not see why folks continue to buy them. Its almost like they
decide to spring $3.50 for a damsel instead of paying $20 for another
and soon find uot that "other" fish are not gonna cut it with that
damsel in there. I feel bad for allthose damsels that were good enough
to endure cycling and bad habits and learning curves of new hobbyists,
but its certianly not the way to view those fish. They are however
very nice in their own tank if yu can handle just them and the few
others that they get along with.....


On Mon, 18 Dec 2006 11:17:35 -0600, "Peter Pan"
wrote:

i learned the hard way that the best way to not have any problems with
Damsels, is to not have any Damsels in your tank.

Yeah, but they make great starter fish, the problem is then you're stuck
with them..




-------
I forgot more about ponds and koi than I'll ever know!

Tristan wrote:
I can honestly say I have only ever had one fish in the damsel family,
a blue devil, and it was bought by my son and was placed in the one
tank without my or the wifes permission.

AFAIK, Damsils are considered "starter fish" because you can add them to
a new aquarium w/ live rock to provide ammonia load and get the system
cycled and running. They are cheap and hardy enough to survive this
environment.

Problem is that they are fairly docile when immature, but grow
increasingly aggressive as they age and can only be kept with other
aggressive species. This blue fin damsel will actually turn black over
time.

As for the offending damsil, I've been planning on a second tank with
more aggressive fish (no corals or anemone), so he'll be my first if he
survives long enough.

--Kurt

When I was investigating starting my reef tank I was told by one LFS
that they would sell me 2 Domino Damsels for $10 to get my 29g tank
cycled. I was welcome to bring them back in a month or 2 for 1/2
credit. I have to admit I was quite happy with this offer. The store
owner was quite surprised when I brought them back 2 months later and
exchanged them both for a pair of Percula Clowns and an anemone. The
Damsels were doing quite well and were a bit larger than he was
expecting them to be. We had 35lbs. of live rock in the tank, Fluval
204 canister filter, 40lbs of live sand and a Corallife Aqualite
moonlight with a 65w 10K and a 65w Actinic. We let the tank sit empty
for 3 weeks and there was no spike in any reading. We added the Dominos
and we had all spikes as expected in 2 weeks. 6 months later we
migrated to one of our 75 gallon tanks and made the 29 a Molly only
tank.

My anemone was almost a victim of the Fluval intake. We got a foam
filter for it after this incident. A 2nd anemone managed to commit
powerhead-icide. Just when I thought this was too far out of the way to
reach he decided to climb the live rock and jump for it.

Now that we know to feed Chip the Chocolate Chip Star twice a week we
haven't lost any more anemones and the P. and O. Clowns are happy.

OK. Its late and I'm rambling again ...

Back to the point. I wouldn't have even considered cycling the tank
with Damsels until it was suggested by the LFS owner. If it wasn't for
the fact that I wanted the clowns and anemones I would probably still
have them.

Enjoy,
Greg

KurtG wrote:
Tristan wrote:
I can honestly say I have only ever had one fish in the damsel family,
a blue devil, and it was bought by my son and was placed in the one
tank without my or the wifes permission.

AFAIK, Damsils are considered "starter fish" because you can add them to
a new aquarium w/ live rock to provide ammonia load and get the system
cycled and running. They are cheap and hardy enough to survive this
environment.

Problem is that they are fairly docile when immature, but grow
increasingly aggressive as they age and can only be kept with other
aggressive species. This blue fin damsel will actually turn black over
time.

As for the offending damsil, I've been planning on a second tank with
more aggressive fish (no corals or anemone), so he'll be my first if he
survives long enough.

--Kurt