Chromis & Blennies

[mikeclarke]

Hi there,

I want to get a couple blue green chromis. Any suggestions on how many chromis' to get? How many makes a happy family?

I am also looking for another blenny as I love the Starry Blenny I already have. It behaves to funny. Any species suggestions on another Blenny?

My wife is coming to Calgary and can pick up fish for me on Wednesday around noon. Has anyone seen any at any LFS recently?

Thanks!

[Dearth]

How big is your tank?

I usually get 4 green chromis they are a schooling fish I like them a lot have lots of personality and unlike most chromis tend to get along with tank mates

Putting more than one Blennie per tank unless a mated pair is a crap shoot depending on the size of tank as most blennies tend not to be friendly towards each other including different species of Blennie.

[mikeclarke]

I want to put the chromis in a 20 gallon tank fish only tank. I have a 100 gallon mixed reef tank with one starry blenny, a clown pair, a foxface, and some pj cardinals.

Would you recommend a goby as blenny alternative? I just like how the blenny swims around and perches on the rocks and climbs into little caves.

[michika]

Chromii/Chromis kill each other off eventually. And they don't school unless something elicits the schooling behavior - usually a larger fish or something to trigger schooling behavior. Don't get me wrong, they're great fish, but they seem to die off when in groups until only one or two are left standing.

[pinkreef]

i have one chromis (5 years old) i started with three he is fine by himself and gets along with everybody else. very pretty fish

[mikeclarke]

I'd like to be able to set up my 20 gallon tank with a couple cheap and hardy fish (which is why I was thinking chromis). I will keep it separate from my 100 gallon reef tank. I can use the 20 gallon tank as a fish only tank and if I get a sick fish or need to quarantine a new fish, I can move the chromis to the sump of the big tank and then move the fish I need to quarantine into this tank. I have the 20 gallon on a shelf off the kitchen so I'd like to have soemthing in it when I don't have a qt fish.

As for the blenny, I really like the one I have in my 100 gallon and I'd like to get another small fish with personality. I'd eventually like to get a tang but I want to stay pretty cheap for the time being.

Any suggestions for the hard guys for the 20 gallon? and for the personality fish for the 100gal?

[mikeclarke]

I originally got pj cardinals (6 of them I think) for my 100 gallon about a year ago. 3 of them killed two and I was able to catch the really beat up guy and qt him until it was healthy. Once he was healthy, the other three killed him in a day but I wasn't able to rescue him. I was told by the sales person that they would be nice schoolers, which is what I wanted in my tank. Unfortunately, I probably wouldn't recommend them in the future as the three that are left don't really school at all.

Does anyone hasve any suggestions for schooling fish if I ever decided to do that in the future?

[Madreefer]

Chromii/Chromis kill each other off eventually. And they don't school unless something elicits the schooling behavior - usually a larger fish or something to trigger schooling behavior. Don't get me wrong, they're great fish, but they seem to die off when in groups until only one or two are left standing.

I have read the same thing. 6 months ago I put 9 chromis in my tanks and they schooled right away. There is no fish in my tank that pesters them. All 9 are still alive and make a cool looking school. I'm sure as time goes by they will start picking each other off.

As for the spare 20G i'd leave it as a quarantine. Having 2 tanks is a pain. And your plan of transfering fish from that tank to a sump when needed is too stressful for the fish.

[tang daddy]

The only fish I had that schooled were blue eyed cardinals, they always stuck together. Anthias and chromis will always kill the weakest link, I had 5 chromis and now one remains.

It would be a bad move to get a bunch of chromis in a 20g IMHO....

If you want something cool to look at for the 20g why not get a frog fish or dwarf scorpion?

[monocus]

way too small for chromis.start your tank with raw prawn,or if you must have fish,an adapted mollie or a clownfish

[asylumdown]

My experience with green chromises (chromi?) was that if you are lucky enough to get a good sex ratio, you won't have as many problems. I started with 5 juveniles, 2 turned out to be male. The two males fought constantly, but things were relatively ok between the females. If I had gotten more males, I'm sure there would have been deaths.

I do agree that 20 gallons is a little small for more than 1. They get quite a bit bigger than you ever see them in stores, and if you got two, and both turned out to be male, it could be ugly.