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New Member
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Last Login: 6/12/2008 5:17:06 AM
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what size the tank? If its small you can eventually get damsels because there colorful fish that do much better in smaller tanks. With a larger tank, you have more possibilities with the most colorful fish around.
Please Ignore- "Why else would I stick my hand into the pirhana tank...it was dirty and needed a SCRUB DOWN!" 
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New Member
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Last Login: 3/22/2008 12:40:14 PM
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I agree with Hailey. I used Damsels and found them to be little bullies.
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"Living Life Full Throttle"
75 gal. saltwater
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New Member
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Last Login: 2/25/2008 6:24:14 AM
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Other then clowns, are there any other "peaceful" (i guess less aggressive would be more appropriate) damsels out there to add to a "community" tank? I've read the three lined damsels are ok if they are added last. But, just being a newbie, i;ve found just because i've read it some where, doesnt make it so. 
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Fishkeeping GURU
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Last Login: Yesterday @ 3:15:22 PM
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Yellow tailed and azure damsels are quite peaceful, as are blue-green chromis if kept in a proper school (like clowns, chromis are damsels as well). I would avoid any of the black and white ones which include the three lined damsel...I have read that they are all pretty aggressive and what I have seen of them in pet stores supports that. Also avoid damsels of the Pomacentrus genus (blue devils and the like), which are known to be very nasty.
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New Member
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Last Login: 3/5/2008 7:31:46 PM
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My yellow tail damsels are pretty territorial. The will dart at the clownfish and attack my algae magnet endlessly when in move it over twoards their live rock.
75 gal- SW FO
1 Dogface puffer
1 Small Blue Tang
2 Yellow-tail damsels
1 Orange Clownfish
29 gal- FW Planted
6- glowlight tetra
2 Silver hatchetfish (more to come)
2 Longfin Danios
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Fishkeeping GURU
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"Peaceful" is a relative term. They are peaceful for damsels.
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New Member
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Last Login: 6/10/2008 3:45:42 PM
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| one question... WHAT IS CYCLING? yeah, as you can see, i dont really know much about saltwater tank keeping. thats why i am on here to ask questions and stuff so i can learn. so thanks for helping!  im not trying to be sarcastic, because you all are smart and know what that is, and since you all are trying to help me, im sure you will explain to me what cycling is.
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Fishkeeping GURU
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It's the same thing you have to do for freshwater tanks...getting the beneficial bacterial colonies started that will consume the ammonia and nitrite and keep the fish safe. You can do it by slowly introducing fish (called "cycling with fish") but that puts them at great risk and causes them pain as they have to suffer through the ammonia and nitrite spikes (and it takes a lot of water changes to keep them from dying, which in saltwater is very expensive). The other alternative is "fishless cycling", which is introducing an ammonia source other than live fish to get the bacteria growing so that when you add fish, there are already enough bacteria to take care of any ammonia or nitrite put out by the fish. Usually in freshwater that ammonia source is pure ammonia, but for some reason that is not used in saltwater tanks (not sure why really). In saltwater you can drop in a medium to large sized cocktail shrimp per ten gallons of water and just let it rot in a tank with no livestock (live rock and/or sand should be in the tank during this though...just nothing else like fish or shrimp).
You want to monitor the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate periodically throughout the process whether you cycle with fish or not (though with fish it is imperative that it is checked every day and water changes are done if needed, while with fishless cycling once a week is fine, just to know when you're done). It can potentially be much faster to cycle a saltwater tank than a freshwater because of the live sand and/or rock. The bacteria are already present in decent numbers in good live sand and rock, so the tank has a good head start cycling. It may take as little as a day or two after the shrimp disintegrates (you want to wait for it to do that because you want the ammonia source to all be let out into the water column). In freshwater tanks it typically takes a month or more. You'll know when you're done when both the ammonia and nitrite have spiked and fallen to 0ppm and stayed there, and you will likely need to do a very large water change to get the nitrate down to 0ppm before adding livestock.
Does all that make sense? It's kind of hard for me to explain. Here is something for freshwater tanks that will help explain it better (the premise is basically the same for saltwater though there are bacteria in saltwater that help control nitrate too, which you can read about later). http://fish.orbust.net/cycling.html
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