Royal Gramma harem

[ID-Reefer]

Just Came across this thread. Guess I’m up next on the experiment. I like small fish schools (or at least small groups) and like to at least buy pairs. I’ve had 6 Royal Grammas for a little while (a month) and all are doing great. They keep to themselves and rarely pick on each other. Hopefully they all continue to do well.
I also have 4 fire gobies, 4 clowns, a pair of flame hawks, pair of lyretail Anthias among several “singles”. Tank is 200 gal display.

It’s hard to photograph them as they aren’t always together but here is a so so photo that has them all. Hard to see but all 6 are there.

 

[OrionN]

Just Came across this thread. I like small fish schools (or at least small groups) and like to at least buy pairs. I’ve had 6 Royal Grammas for a little while (a month) and all are doing great. They keep to themselves and rarely pick on each other. Hopefully they all continue to do well.
I also have 4 fire gobies, 4 clowns, a pair of flame hawks, pair of lyretail Anthias among several “singles”. Tank is 200 gal display.

It’s hard to photograph them as they aren’t always together but here is a so so photo that has them all. Hard to see but all 6 are there.

I am glad that you have good luck with them. I always have a harem of 5 or 6 with 1 male and the rest are females in my large tank. I am not sure of why people have problem with them. Royal Gramma are dimorphic with the male clearly different than female in appearance. IME, they are also protogynous hermaphrodites, with the most dominant turn male very quickly.

 

[VR28man]

Great @ID-Reefer ! Be very interested in how this turns out. That being said, your post needs a video. .

Honestly, from what I've read, those groups sound like they might be prone to aggression.

- 4 clowns is not really enough to dilute agression, unless they are two pairs fairly far away from each other in the tank that don't compete.

- firefish reportedly don't do well with others of their own kind, unless the tank is really large. Having other fish around in a large tank may encourage them to group together and/or not be aggressive together.

- some people, obviously, have reported something similar for Royal Grammas, in tanks too small without proper layouts for the species. That being said, I'd expect them to be OK for you.

I would be very interested to hear how things go for you with all of these groups; I've been interested in keeping a group of firefish. In particular, in my experience (in a standard aqueon 29G) one RG bullied the firefish and the firefish did not want to come out as much once the RG arrived.


It seems Royal Grammas live under coral heads in the wild, in groups of up to dozens with a decided pecking order. (with the lowest on the rung in some cases becoming easily famished or prey).

Ref: https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=723

Fairy basslet groups live in a social structure consisting of dominance hierarchies arranged by size, with the largest fish at each coral head being the dominant one (Freeman and Alevizon 1983). The diet of the fairy basslet consists primarily of free-living planktonic crustaceans, but the species will also eat parasitic forms (ectoparasites picked from the bodies of other fishes; Böhlke and Randall 1963).


In the Caribbean, the species has been used as a model to understand the effects of interactions between size classes and the effects of density dependence on juvenile recruitment and mortality (Webster and Hixon 2000; Webster 2003, 2004). These studies showed that the fairy basslet occupies the undersides of open reef ledges where it lives in dominance hierarchies maintained by aggression between size classes such that larger fish occupy prime plankton-feeding positions closer to the outer edge of the ledge (Webster and Hixon 2000). In an experimental manipulation, Webster (2004) found that juveniles transplanted to reefs with adults were more likely to suffer mortality than juveniles transplanted to reefs with no or few adults. This was because in the presence of adults, juveniles tended to feed at the back of aggregations, where feeding rates were generally lower and predators were more abundant. Additionally, predators tended to aggregate and spend more time in regions where densities of fairy basslets were high (Webster 2003).

Aggregations of fairy basslets generally consist of one or two males, several females and some smaller males and juveniles (Asoh 1996). Membership in these aggregations was remarkably stable (Asoh 1996). Mating is polygynous with a one-male—multi-female group or promiscuous within a multi-male—multi-female group (Asoh 1996).

Here's a video of them in the wild in Cuba, courtesy of Dr. Bruce Carlson. They are looking for Gramma dejongi here, but Gramma loreto is everywhere. This also inspires me for my next tank - I'll keep a decent overhang. I may not keep an RG in said tank, but I'm sure it will still be useful for cryptic fish.