Starki Damsel twitching

Trever

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Is it true a male Damsel will twitch to attract females?

My fish has been in tank 15 days. Was in a medicated QT at the LFS (extremely reliable LFS- best you can get). No manifest disease in any fish in my tank. This Starki is aggressive, out and about, and eats well. He does flash, but it's very limited and typically I worry he's gonna scratch his eyes (not flashing his body).

His aggression has landed him in my sump (AKA "Haides") until I get my new 20 gallon long FOLWR spun up (a few more days). There's an awful lot of reflection in the sump judging by his swimming behavior. If it's true about the twitching, my guess is he's started twitching in the sump because he's twitching at his reflection.

I have no idea if this fish is even a male but it would all make sense, including his coloration, which is very saturated. He looks like a painted swedish team mascot, partly why I'm keeping/rehoming him, love this stunning fish.
 
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Midrats

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I have a huge one. It "twitches" sometimes and swims around rapidly. Not sure what spurs the behavior, maybe he sees himself? He is a complete jerk. I tried to put a Tomini tang in there a couple of months ago and he shredded him so badly in 5 minutes I had to return the tang to the fish store.
 
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Trever

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@Midrats yeah he does a little herky-jerky (swims around rapidly) too- not swimming all over the place but rapid little changes of direction, etc. Sounds familiar.

Given the coloration, I named my fish Sven.

Given the behavior, his full name (first, middle, last) is Sven The Dick. I think I'm going to like having a small simple FOWLR to admire him, but in the DT, I began to hate him. He's a beautiful and well put together fish though, that's for sure. Supposedly can live a very long time.
 
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Midrats

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They are beautiful fish, and my favorite damsel for sure. I like the way their scales look, and they look like they have eyeliner on. Love the name LOL, they do sport Swedish colors.
 

KrisReef

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Nice. I had been considering one of these but I think that might not be a good idea. Love the name.
 
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@Midrats I wasn't very clear, just trying to say that if you can get them away from the context where all you see is the humanly inexusable behavior- constantly mugging my adorable friendly little clown fish, for example (to anthropomorphize :))- for me it becomes easy to enjoy this fish and glad I bought it. In fact, I may try to obtain a female and pair them in the FOWLR where they may be the only residents. But I don't know if they try to kill each other in the process of reproducing or what- more research needed!

To the topic, my posting question is sort of the ultimate "going to the internet to obtain confirmation bias", but just seeing if someone can say "indeed, they twitch to attract a female".

I mean... it worked for me with my wife...
 
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@KrisReef long story as to why I brought him home, but he was behaving this way in the store to Anthias, while dodging and Angel fish that kept trying to punish him. Many report they are well behaved. I have a small tank with smaller fish, all parts of the problem here.

So I'm inexperienced but you might find your experience with such a fish different than mine or @Midrats. My sense is that this is borderline fish, and how it acts will depend more on the environment and order of addition to the tank than roll-of-the-dice individualism. Even at his worse, from everything I've read, my Starki was not a typical Damsel and I probably could have kept him in the DT, though he might eventually have stressed my Chromis to death, and it was just not a lot of fun to watch my commune tank-of-love turn into a bad neighborhood. He also may have become deadly as he ages (he's not that young now, but pretty sure he's a bit of a ways from being full size).

But if you're considering, and depending on your tank, and if you can observe on in the store...
 

KrisReef

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@KrisReef long story as to why I brought him home, but he was behaving this way in the store to Anthias, while dodging and Angel fish that kept trying to punish him. Many report they are well behaved. I have a small tank with smaller fish, all parts of the problem here.

So I'm inexperienced but you might find your experience with such a fish different than mine or @Midrats. My sense is that this is borderline fish, and how it acts will depend more on the environment and order of addition to the tank than roll-of-the-dice individualism. Even at his worse, from everything I've read, my Starki was not a typical Damsel and I probably could have kept him in the DT, though he might eventually have stressed my Chromis to death, and it was just not a lot of fun to watch my commune tank-of-love turn into a bad neighborhood. He also may have become deadly as he ages (he's not that young now, but pretty sure he's a bit of a ways from being full size).

But if you're considering, and depending on your tank, and if you can observe on in the store...
I appreciate your answer. I have other fish that behave like your damsel and it would be tempting fate to upset the delicate situation that already exists in my system.

I do have access to a lfs that allows me to try out fish but It’s not worth the many risks to do so-imo.

when I do consider adding new fish I ask myself if I would want a tankmate that carries on like that if I was living in the same situation?
The starkii is really handsome but appears that they sometimes do not play well with others.
 

AcanthurusRex

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Medicated is meaningless unless you have an understanding of proper QT protocols. Flashing and shaking are suspect behavior.
 
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Trever

Trever

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@AcanthurusRex my LFS is highly regarded and been doing QT for over 20 years, including relying on their stocking for the many tanks they manage in high profile environments in a major metro area. They go thru a series of protocols, to address various diseases. QT is absolute routine for them, they always do it, generally won't take fish back accordingly (they don't know what goes on in my tank), etc.. I believe they do QT a lot better than I could, so for my current purposes, I do rely on them (even though my LFS would be the first to say you should always QT your fish at home).

The fish sometimes flashes (haven't seen it do it today... it's not often), but it is not doing anything like sick fish I've seen in some stores, and I wouldn't call it shaking. It twitches. Sometimes. It can seem very deliberate. So if in fact they do precisely that to attract females, it seems clear that's what I'm seeing. If they never do that and the stuff I've read is completely bogus, I'd begin to have concerns about disease.

What I'm really after is not whether or not my fish could have a disease.

I'm trying to understand if these fish are well known to engage in certain behaviors to attract a mate.
 
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