BULLY FISH! What fish should you stay away from?

Do you have any "bully fish" in your tank?

  • YES (tell us in the thread)

    Votes: 258 61.3%
  • NO bullies just misunderstood...

    Votes: 137 32.5%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 26 6.2%

  • Total voters
    421

Reefer Guy

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My maroon clown bites anything from fingers to frags that are in his territory. She has also unfortunately killed a few fish so has to be kept all alone.
 

Squidward

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My Powder Blue was a bully at juvenile stage. It would bully my blue hippo who was easily twice it's size. Eventually it outgrew the hippo. Then I added my Achilles and the Achilles have taken the thrown. He's constantly chasing the powder blue every once in a while just letting it know who's King of the tank.

Bully fish I've had/still have/no longer have...
Flameback Angel
Flame Angel
Passer Angel
Achilles Tang
Powder Blue Tang
Purple Tang

The horror stories I've heard about Clown and Sohal Tangs... I'm not even going to attempt to keep them.
 

ThRoewer

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I had a bully for a short time...

The inhabitants of my 100-gallon reef tank are:
- a spawning pair of Red Sea Clownfish (plus 3 of their babies now)
- a spawning pair of Marine Betta
- a spawning pair of Mandarins
- a spawning pair of Royal Gramma
- a pair of Maldive Regal Angels (he wants to spawn but she thinks she is still too young to be a mommy...)
- and lastly one lone Orchid dottyback (the last of a group of 5)

All get along pretty well - only if someone gets too close to the nest of the Clownfish they get a bit upset - otherwise, it's outright boring in there.

Then I added a medium-sized Yellow Tang to my 100 gallon tank to help fighting hair algae and he became an instant bully. Of course, the others were at first not too happy when I added him but nobody actually attacked him. Though he being well-armed with two knives he decided he wanted to be the king of the tank and quickly claimed the main cave - the primary residence of the Marine Betta male and share with the Regals - as his instead of sharing it peacefully with the original residents. Within a few weeks things got pretty bad. The Marine Betta had to take shelter under the rock behind the Clownfish and the Regals sported ned scrapes and scratches every day. When the female Regal showed up with shredded fins I had enough of this bully. So I got my micro hooks, baited one, and a few moments later I had hooked that miserable tang and relocated him to my damsel tank. There he can do whatever he wants but the damsels are too fast for him.

I replaced that tang in the 100 gallon with a pair of Foxfaces. After only a few weeks they are fully accepted and the smaller is even allowed to hang out near the anemones of the clowns.
 

DennistheMenace

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My Oscellarus clown bites me every time I stick my hand in the tank.
Just about any damsel, I wont put them in another reef tank EVER! I have an aptaisa issue, and they have killed 2 filefish, and 2 Copperband Butterfly fish.
Yellow Psuedochromis, it has killed every wrasse, or dragonette type of fish I have tried to introduce.
 

Algae_Farmer

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Pink square anthias - incredibly beautiful fish. I saw it as I was leaving the LFS, already over "budget", but got it anyway as the LFS guy said "oh yeah, it's a peaceful community fish". Then it reigned terror over my actually peaceful community fish for a few months. Took me 2 weeks to trap the SOB, but he's now back at LFS.

Funny part is, my bicolor dottyback had always been peaceful, but apparently learned some tricks from the anthias, because now that the anthias is gone the dottyback took over the reign of terror.

20200929_054327.jpg
 

Hans-Werner

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Stay away from Dascyllus reticulatus, reticulate dascyllus, and most likely other Dascyllus. They really are incredible.
 

SMB

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Not their fault, the hormones did it.
Had three female Lyretail Anthias that did great in QT. Within 3 weeks of entering the DT one transitioned into a beautiful male.
Well that was fine for about a month until a second female became another strapping male. The two males divided my 100 gal tank right down the middle. Each took half and never strayed over the imaginary dividing line. That worked out OK for six months, but was a little ruff on the remaining female who got flashed no matter where she went.
At some point the first male took over the whole tank and now the second male lives in a corner. He eats well but doesn't get out much. I have tried catching either male in a fish trap. At feeding time all the fish go into the trap BUT the two male Anthias.
I don't have a lot of fish so I added three very small female Lyretail. The dominant male is now completely confused which takes some pressure off the lesser male.
If you are going to get Anthias start with really young ones. They are less likely to transition.
Still working on how to catch one of the males!
 

Doctorgori

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I had a bully for a short time...

The inhabitants of my 100-gallon reef tank are:
- a spawning pair of Red Sea Clownfish (plus 3 of their babies now)
- a spawning pair of Marine Betta
- a spawning pair of Mandarins
- a spawning pair of Royal Gramma
- a pair of Maldive Regal Angels
...truncated post....
Bragging huh? Seriously tho, that’s impressive, nice :cool:
 

jeblin

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Domino Damsel here a few years ago. Dominated the tank, murdered a few inhabitants, etc. It was fine for a few years but once it grew about a 4-5" body, it went bat crap insane. We were finally able to net it and went to a buddies aggressive tank. A beautiful fish but I'll never have another.
 

Easy E

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I've had a lot of bullies in my tanks over the years, but the Red Diana's Hogfish was by far the worst, particularly at feeding time. It would snatch food right out of the other fish's mouths, and torpedo them in the side while they were trying to eat.
 

hardcorefishhead

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I had a serial killer in my 150G DT. When I discovered that it was my Clown Trigger I moved it to a 55G where it remained solitary for 2 years. Meanwhile I put a Sohal Tang in my display and after about a year, it started to terrorize the community consisting of a Hippo Tang, Yellow Tang, Blonde Naso, Chocolate, and Sailfin Tang. So I decided to move it to the 55G with the Clown Trigger and to my surprise after 4 months it has worked out. Whenever the Trigger tries to attack the Tang, the Tang is too fast and swims circles around the Trigger leaving it confused so for now they seem to be evenly matched.
 

Squidward

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I had a serial killer in my 150G DT. When I discovered that it was my Clown Trigger I moved it to a 55G where it remained solitary for 2 years. Meanwhile I put a Sohal Tang in my display and after about a year, it started to terrorize the community consisting of a Hippo Tang, Yellow Tang, Blonde Naso, Chocolate, and Sailfin Tang. So I decided to move it to the 55G with the Clown Trigger and to my surprise after 4 months it has worked out. Whenever the Trigger tries to attack the Tang, the Tang is too fast and swims circles around the Trigger leaving it confused so for now they seem to be evenly matched.
55g with the clown trigger and a Sohal? That's way too small a tank for either one of those yikes.
 

Jagg

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We've all had those fish that are just mean! I call them BULLY FISH! I understand it's in the nature of fish to protect territory and stuff like that but sometimes a fish is just a big bully! Sometimes they not only bully other fish but they bully YOU! HA! Today let's talk about the fish that have been a menace to your other tank inhabitants and which ones you would stay clear of!

What fish have you had bad luck with when it comes to being a bully in the tank?

What fish would you caution people to stay away from?



image via @Waynerock
ED98591F-E377-45DF-9459-D0BEBB5A32CE.jpeg
 

Leo_ian

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Mine are chromis (killed all of this tankmates and started bullying everyone else) and clowns

most damsels like sprigers' and yellow tails are quite peaceful IME
 
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