DAMSELS what is your opinion on them

[albert_dao]

Originally Posted by Coasting

Ive heard just as many conflicting stories about keeping a small group of chromis in a tank as a small group of damsels, at least with the damsels I get more colour then the green chromis.

So it would be either a few Damsel or a few Chromis. Ideally with something to clean the sand..... But the idea of a school of silver fish doesn't really appeal to me, which is why I was leaning towards a few damsel instead, unless I could do a variety of single chromis?

Long-term Chromis schools tend to deteriorate into a single pair unless, as I mentioned earlier, you have a large tank (200+ gallons), a really big school (20ish+) and something that harasses them. Chromis do not school in the sense that something like a freshwater Cardinal Tetra does. That is, they don't school because they're socially docile. They have a pecking order that is only maintained due to the constant threat of predation. Subtract that from the equation and they just end up behaving as any damsel would.

A good example would be my buddy Fooser. He threw something like 30 Chromis into his 300 gallon tank. There's now two. It looks really stupid. I'll see if he can chime in here for ya.

Edit: If you REALLY want something that schools, grab some Blue Eyed Cardinals. They tend to form pretty stable schools and look AWESOME when they're older.