Reconsidering Damsels

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jefra

jefra

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Wow how did you get 2 Starcki. I could get any until the last two months and it’s too late for me because now I’m stocked [emoji24][emoji24][emoji24]
LiveAquaria has them pretty regularly. The Diver's Den ones go fast but the non-WYSIWYG are in stock quite often and they still have some right now. Maybe it's more of a seasonal species? I've been seeing them in stock more and more lately.
 

iramack

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I have 3 Lemon Damsels (Pomacentrus moluccensis) I got from LA. BIG no HUGE Mistake!! They chase each other and fuss all day long. Also they like to re-arrange my substrate and cover corals with it!!
I should have known better but now I'm stuck. They are housed in my 45 galllon tank with a tail spot blenny, royal gramma & Pink streaked wrasse. I want them out but they are too clever for my fish trap!
And boy are they FAST!!
SM
 

ca1ore

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Pomacentrus can be hit or miss. A while back I bought a trio of what I thought to be Talbots off DD. Turns out they were misidentified by DD (now fixed) and actually Ambon damsels. Much bigger and more boisterous than Talbots. Fortunately the two that survive are mostly kept in line by the bigger fish in my tank (the 2” male is mr. attitude), but were they were the largest fish I could see that being a problem.
 

Tamberav

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I love my starkii...I actually had to trade in my small starkii for a large one because my Royal Gramma was bullying it. My large starkii is the biggest fish in the tank by far but causes no troubles and my Gramma don't dare try and mess with the new one.

She is acting as the peacekeeper among the squabbling smaller fish. I had them in past tanks with great success too so I always try to have one.


MVIMG_20190516_161352.jpg
 
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JumboShrimp

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I put 7 Yellow Tail Damsels in my 6' long 90 gallon (shallow) tank all at once, and true to their reputation, they killed each other off until they were down to 2-- which co-exist just fine. I also have a large 3-Stripe Damsel and large Domino Damsel and a small Talbot Damsel in there-- so that's a total of 5. Everything is good, so I surmise that when there are simply to many for the volume of water / amount of rock work, these Potential Killers will let you know (Lol).
 

GoldeneyeRet

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@GoldeneyeRet I'd never heard of fusilier damsels and had to go look them up. Really stunning! Do you have any pictures of yours?

I could not capture photos of these in my display, but I did manage a few poor shots of the group I have in qt. Terrible lights and poor pictures, but it's something at least!

20190520_160126.jpg
 

vetteguy53081

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Reading a lot about Azures and their peacefulness. I have had nothing but bullying experiences with damsels. NO Damsels for me
 
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Wow how did you get 2 Starcki. I could get any until the last two months and it’s too late for me because now I’m stocked [emoji24][emoji24][emoji24]

LA/DD has had a string of Starcki coming in. If you are on their daily email list you will get an idea of what may be released that day. Also while not 100% positive so don't hold me accountable but Starcki also seem to be seasonal. I'm seeing a lot more available the last two months than previous so who knows.
 
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Hey guys, got my damsel order in today. Everyone looks healthy and I'm especially amazed by the indigo and yellow contrast of the Starckis - such beautiful fish. I bought 4 captive bred Azures but unfortunately they're much, much smaller than the 2 Starckis and 2 Rolland's. The Starckis are about five times larger and Rolland's three times larger than the little Azures. I was afraid to put them in quarantine with the much larger damsels so have them in one of my zoa growout boxes for now. As you can see, they're not much larger than zoa polyp. I figured this was slightly more okay considering they're CB.

MDv6vAl.jpg
 

ca1ore

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My azures came in tiny like that. Feed them a lot in QT and they’ll grow fast.
 

mattzang

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same! i haven't yet experienced any bad damsels with a springers, azure, and hopefully the two starckis. gotta add talbots and rollands in the future.. and traceys if i can ever find them

i'm curious what everyone thinks will happen with these two. i suppose damsels don't pair quite like clowns, but i'm hoping there's a bit of a size difference and they can tolerate each other.

also why on earth is this fish not collected or often seen?
Chrysiptera flavipinnis

ChrysipteraFlavipinnis10534a.jpg


stumbled across it last night researching starckis and thought this was an abberant starcki or something at first. beautiful fish
 

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That fish is gorgeous!

Damsels bad reputation stretches back to the days when Dominoes, Blue Devils and Sergeant Majors were the most commonly available choices.

I admit to being off the damsel train for a long time after my experience with those three species lol...
 

mattzang

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yeah i got lucky when i started that all of the lfs around me were big time damsel haters, so i didn't start off with them.

but people then overcompensate and just hate all damsels. that's like having a bad experience with a sixline and then saying all wrasses are bad

they do need to be done intelligently, like adding a ton of them at the start and then trying to add passive fish later on, probably not a great plan.
 

mattzang

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ups MVP delivered to my neighbor's house and dropped it several feet over a gate. sweet! hopefully it was a gentle drop at least

we'll see how this goes. i guess fish generally get this same treatment at airports and what not, but ugh.
 

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