20-30 damsels or cromis in a 120 reef?

eli@fijireefrock.com · #1 06-21-2002, 03:18 PM

i am thinking to purchase about 20-30 :eek: mix of damsels and chromis fish for my 120gln reef.
by the time the fish will be in,the tank inhabitant will be the damsels of course over 100lb of live rock a single yellow eye one tomato clown.aprox 20-30 :D soft and leather corals some sps and lps.so tell me if i am wrong there will be enough room hiding space for all those fish.or should i go with 10 tank raised perculas. :confused:

DJ88 · #2 06-21-2002, 03:30 PM

Your tank will be seriously over stocked. With any of those combinations.

In a 120 I'd say 10 chromis might be ok. not that many damsels or clowns. They will kill each other. IMO IME

Damsels in the wild live in a space of about 1 cubic meter EACH. And they defend this territory aggressively. Once the percs mature you'd have another fight on your hands. I have seen three in a tank together. Most often more than two isn't recommended of any fish of the same species.

Damsels adn Clowns AREN'T schooling fish. Or even shoaling fish. When they are juveniles yes they will stick with each other.. as they grow no way.

I have had a small shoal of chromis and they even took each other out. slowly but surely the smallest one gets picked on till it dies. Then the next and so on and so forth. It dowesn't always work this way but the norm seems to be like this.

With your Tomato clown you'd probably be looking for more trouble. They can be quite belligerent.

If you ask me you are looking for trouble with numbers like that.

Samw · #3 06-21-2002, 05:50 PM

How about a bunch of neon and sharknose gobies? They are cleaner gobies and perform cleaning duties on larger fish.

Scientific names are Gobiosoma oceanops and Gobiosoma evelynae. They are territorial towards each other but then so are clownfish. They do pair up and are known to breed in captivity.

http://www.orafarm.com/otherspecies.html

http://www.reefcorner.com/SpecimenSheets/neon_goby.htm

DJ88 · #4 06-21-2002, 07:14 PM

Patrick,

Short of going for a 500+ gallon tank so you can have true schooling fish I don't know of any that will go in a smaller tank.

Bangaii's are hit and miss. Some are shoaling fish and some aren't. I bought five black cardinals after reading they were a shoaling fish. They weren't. The smallest beat the snot out of the rest. :confused: yeah I know. Cardinals for the most part will do well in pairs only. Due to the lack of space in our systems we really can't keep a large group of fish.

Some people do have luck with chromis while some don't. I had a group in my old 90 and the smallest was killed in weeks. Then the group moved on to the next smallest. You can figure out the rest.

I think you will find for the most part our tanks are too small to keep a larger group of fish in them. Even smaller bodied fish.

There are people who have success and there are those who don't. I think it is like anything in this hobby. Sometimes it works.. sometimes it doesn't. Tehre are fish that when they are juveniles are fine in groups. They prefer it that way in the wild for protection. ie regal tang. But once they start maturing they lose this self preservation instinct and go it on their own.

For the welfare of the animals tho I never suggest overloading a tank. We have a very very tiny area for these fish to live in. We need to be very careful with what goes into the tank so that we get a peacful harmony.

With that said. in a nutshell other thana group of barnacle blennies I don't know of many small fish that do well in large numbers in a small tank. All I have ever seen exhibit agression in one form or another.

Taoism · #5 06-21-2002, 10:49 PM

Check out Apogon Leptacanthus for a small schooling fish...

The will only get to about 2" in length and school...

I am getting somewhere between 20-40 of them for my tank (if I ever manage to move into my new house and get it all done) [img]smile.gif[/img]

I think they would look really cool [img]smile.gif[/img]

Cheers,
Keith.

AMH · #6 06-22-2002, 01:10 AM

Have you considered a mix of firefish with purple firefish?

BCReefer · #7 06-22-2002, 04:46 AM

What would the recommendation if you wanted a schooling fish and over 10 of them in a 120 G tank?

Or is there any fish that we could do this with? My initial hunch is no, or maybe bangils?

Patrick

DJ88 · #8 06-22-2002, 03:50 PM

AMH,

Welcome to the board. [img]smile.gif[/img]

One thing to concider with firefish. Unless you buy a mated pair you run a good chance of them killing each other in time. They are a solitary fish for the most part.

Dez · #9 06-22-2002, 07:18 PM

what about a shoal or skool of fish in a 150gallon? I was looking at getting about 5 anthias. I know someone who has 5 of them in a 100 gallon. What to you guys think? I really want a skool of fish of some sort in my tank. But everybody has chromis. Let me know... any experiences?

des

terryp01 · #10 06-22-2002, 10:15 PM

Firefish are probably the worst fish to place in a 120 gallon. They are sold as fish which can get along with multiple fish in the same tank but, in my experience, you will end up with two. A dominant high swimming fish and a beat up smaller fish that hides in the rock.

Chromis (green or blue) would be the best but I would not recommend any more than 8 of these at one time. If you have other fish they may not get along with them.

Good luck on your choice.