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So here's the deal. I just got 2 striped damsels and they were doing really good the first day. Then I started to notice one of them constantly chasing the other around. I did read that they were territorial so I just thought it was a bit normal. But then it got to a point where whenever I would put some food in the tank, it would chase the other one into a corner before it got a chance to eat anything. So as you can guess, the fish starved to death.
I woke up this morning and saw it swimming around the other dead fish, poking it with it's mouth. Not viciously, just like it was curious or something. As soon as I removed the dead fish, the other one swam inside of a cave decoration that I have in the tank and hasn't come out on it's own since! I was concerned if it was still alive, so i nudged the decoration a bit and when it swam out, the fish was nearly all black!!!! I don't know if it's color changed because it was in the dark cave for so long or if something is really wrong with it now. They were the only two fish that I had in the tank so I don't know if that was the mistake or not. SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME!!!! I'm so new at this, it's just about pathetic. =[

1 Ocellaris Clown: $14.95...1 Pink Dottyback: $12.99...1 Three Striped Damsel: $4.50...1 Blue Velvet Damsel: $8.95
The Problems that come with them: Priceless

Please could we have some information about the tank.

Size? How long has the tank been in place when and how much was the last water change. I also want you to know that no-one is pathetic when they are all learning, we all went through the same process, trials and tribulations and and we are happy to try and help.

I also found this site that has some information about the stiped damsel

http://animal-world.com/encyclo/marine/damsels/fourstripe.php

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070214174147AAjwCq0&show=7

After researching the damsel I have found that they are a very aggressive fish and are very territorial. Especially to its own kind or what it may see as its own kind. Right now im guessing the damsel is staking out its terratory. If and when you introduce new fish to the tank I would move the rocks and caves around to confuse the damsel so it doesnt attack any other fish. I wouldnt worry about its actions too much right now, if this keeps going then it may be something else. HTH

Thanks for your input as always, Shane
http://thetanklog.blogspot.com/ - [ Thanks to ScottF ]
http://www.natureaquariumclubofutah.com/main.html

Well, I just set up the tank almost 2 weeks ago. I made sure the temp was good [between 75 and 80] and the salinity is at exactly 1.022. I still have the box the tank came in and absolutely nowhere on there does it say how many gallons, but it says "size 10" which I'm guessing means 10 gallons. [I'm thinking this might be too small for it?]
The fish is out and swimming about now, by the way. His color is back to normal and he's eating fine. I'm not sure why it was behaving that way earlier, but the little guy seems ok now.
I'm so surprised how such a tiny little thing can be so aggressive! He has that whole tank all to himself now and I guess that might be good for him until I do introduce some new fish to the tank. I never thought to move things around for that reason and I will definitely do that when I get some new fish.
When do you think I should introduce a new fish? And should I do it one fish at a time?
[Thanks for the advice, by the way! Veryyyy helpful!!]

1 Ocellaris Clown: $14.95...1 Pink Dottyback: $12.99...1 Three Striped Damsel: $4.50...1 Blue Velvet Damsel: $8.95
The Problems that come with them: Priceless

Well to be honest a 10 gallon tank is too small for that fish, those sites i gave you said a minimum of 15 gallons for that fish. As far as introducing other fish I would wait maybe a week. But Salt water tanks are not my specialty. I would suggest posting some questions in the salt water forum. Honestly i think the little guy was just scared and stressed. I have some freshwater black skirt tetras that do the exact same thing when they get scared they loose all their color

Thanks for your input as always, Shane
http://thetanklog.blogspot.com/ - [ Thanks to ScottF ]
http://www.natureaquariumclubofutah.com/main.html

Haha! See? I'm not even in the correct forum!
The thing is, I didn't buy the tank, my boyfriend bought it for me while I was out of town. If I knew it would be too small and I was buying it, I would have probably bought like a 50 gallon or something so I wouldn't have to worry about the fish being too confined. I'm sure that I'll upgrade to a much larger one soon enough.
And yeah, I was imagining that I should give it a week, so I feel better getting a second opinion on that. I really can't thank you enough for all the help!

1 Ocellaris Clown: $14.95...1 Pink Dottyback: $12.99...1 Three Striped Damsel: $4.50...1 Blue Velvet Damsel: $8.95
The Problems that come with them: Priceless

I will move you over to the salties.

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Before you criticize someone walk a mile in their shoes. That way you're a mile away and you have their shoes.

hey you are welcome, glad i could be of some help, in fact you are my first i could help lol. Just some ideas from what i have learned about salt water tanks. I would suggest a 55gal to start off with. You can get a brand new one for about $100 but i'm sure you could find some for cheaper either on craigslist.com or even your local newspaper or news websites. we have a local channel that has a classifieds section. I have heard even the small clown fish need a 55gallon to start with.

Also I would heavily research your salt water fish during the week while you are waiting as it will give you an idea of what other aggressive fish you can have in that tank with the striped damsel. Right now I am a freshwater fish keeper and I am still not getting in right but eventually i'm going into salt water as they are a very beautiful group of fish.

I am glad you are getting into the hobby & have a fun time.

Thanks for your input as always, Shane
http://thetanklog.blogspot.com/ - [ Thanks to ScottF ]
http://www.natureaquariumclubofutah.com/main.html

[yay, thanks for moving me to where I belong. HaHa!]
So yeah, I'm probably going to invest into a bigger tank pretty soon. I don't want to hurt my boyfriend's feelings and make him think he didn't get me enough, so I'll have to wait a bit so he can be all proud of himself.
The fish seems happy now. He's just strutting around that tank now because he know that he pretty much owns the place! Which I'm sure is going to pose problems when I put a new fish in, but I'll take your previous advice a shuffle stuff around.
I love the fish in freshwater tanks. I've seen them but the only names that stick out to me a cichlids and tetras. [And are those even right? ] I just wanted a tank like the one I have now because I'm taking a marine bio class in school and recognize a lot of the fish. I'm pretty sure it's going to teach me WAY more than my class will!

1 Ocellaris Clown: $14.95...1 Pink Dottyback: $12.99...1 Three Striped Damsel: $4.50...1 Blue Velvet Damsel: $8.95
The Problems that come with them: Priceless

There's still quite a bit of information left to know about the tank before we could assess the cause of death of your damsel. I'd like to know more about your setup. Do you have live rock, a skimmer, what type of filter do you have? Also some other parameters would be helpful, like ammonia, nitrIte, nitrAte, and pH for starters. Also, how long have you had the fish? It's not likely it could starve in a week or two, though the aggression may have been a part of the problem.

I never recommend a 10 to a beginner, as the smaller a tank is, the more difficult it is to maintain. The salinity can easily fluctuate daily, as well as nutrients building up much faster than in larger tanks. And with a fish that gets as aggressive as the striped damsels, one fish will not want to share a tank that size with anyone else. That doesn't even begin to say that the tank won't do for the fish in the future.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Ah, Damselfishes.

Damselfishes have traditionally been sold as "beginner's marines" because they are amongst the most forgiving marine fishes with respect to the maintenance mistakes that a novice marine aquarist is likely to make. However, they have their own problems, as you have discovered the hard way.

Your "Striped Damselfish" are probably one of two well known species, the White Tailed Humbug Damselfish, Dascyllus aruanus, or the Black Tailed Humbug Damselfish, Dascyllus melanurus. I'l link a couple of photos so you can see what fishes I'm referring to:

White Tailed Humbug Damsel

Black Tailed Humbug Damsel

There are other Damselfishes with stripes (most notably the various Sergeant Majors belonging to the Genus Abudefduf) but your fishes are probably one of the Humbug Damsels I've linked to, as they're the commonest in the trade.

Now, the problem with Dascyllus species (and this applies to the entire Genus, not just to Humbug Damsels) is that they are VERY strongly territorial fishes in an aquarium. On a reef in the wild, they can be found living in shoals, but then on a reef they have FAR more space available to them than in any aquarium other than a huge public aquarium, and so, they have sufficient space to maintain distinct territories whilst still shoaling. In an aquarium, they don't generally have that luxury, and so, territorial behaviour comes to the fore. This article covers the Genus in good detail, and as the article says, they are extremely territorial in an aquarium. This means that one should either buy just one individual for an aquarium (and house it with fishes that are likely to be able to withstand living alongside something that has all the feistiness of the big Cichlids from the freshwater world), or if space permits, house a group of six or more so that territorial infighting is spread as thinly as possible. The latter approach usually involves housing them in an aquarium of not less than 150 gallons if it is to be achieved with some success, because their territorial demands are large in comparison to the body size of the fishes.

Now there do exist some Damsels that are relatively mild mannered (the Chromis Damsels fit into this category) but even these will exhibit some boisterousness from time to time. Damsels such as the Pomacentrus species are likely to be fairly feisty, while the Stegastes and Dascyllus damsels are best regarded as hardcore bruisers capable of launching into vicious internecine warfare at the drop of a hat unless provision is made to minimise this, which isn't a simple task by any stretch of the imagination with fishes that not only share Cichlid levels of aggression but many of the other behaviours seen in Cichlids including mating and parental care of offspring - in fact, the Damselfishes and the Cichlids share a common evolutionary ancestor, share almost all salient anatomical details (the only real difference is to be found in the structure of the skull in the region of the orbit or eye socket) and share a propensity for complex social behaviours. Thus the Damselfishes should be thought of in similar terms to the Cichlids as regards both intraspecific aggression and likely attitudes toward other aquarium companions.

In a small aquarium, a single Damselfish is likely to regard the entire aquarium as being it's exclusive territory, and is therefore likely not only to launch into vicious combat to defend that territory against another Damselfish, but is also likely to harass to death other, more peaceful fishes such as Gobies that it regards as interlopers upon its "patch". Only in a suitably large aquarium, with companions that are capable of looking after themselves, will a Damselfish be content with selecting a portion of the available aquarium space as its own, leaving the rest of the aquarium as the preserve of the other fishes.

Conversely, Damselfishes are small enough to qualify as food for a number of other reef fishes, particularly fishes such as larger Lionfishes and Groupers, so in the wild, faced with threats from these predators, they will (especially as juveniles) engage in shoaling behaviour for protection. Once sexual maturity asserts itself, however, Damselfishes will seek out territories and defend them fearlessly against interlopers larger than themselves. Indeed, one of the Stegastes species has even been recorded as attacking the camera housing of a scuba diver in order to repel what it considered to be unwelcome intrusion, and will even square up to the face mask of a scuba diver and make repeated "attack runs" to let the diver know that he or she is most definitely considered to be an intruder! With behaviour like that documented in the scientific literature, it should come as no surprise to learn that the feistier Damselfishes will behave exactly as you have witnessed in your aquarium.

One of the points I keep hammering home here on these forums is that doing the basic research before a penny is spent upon the fishes will save expensive heartache later. It's true in the freshwater world, and true ten times over in the marine world, where fishes are correspondingly more expensive (sometimes frighteningly so!) and much less likely to tolerate water chemistry mismanagement. Remember that some marine fishes come with astronomical price tags (for example, a Candystripe Angelfish will cost you as much as a BMW car!) and that many of these fishes will also come with a host of potential maintenance problems that you, the aquarist, will have to plan for in advance (possibly spending a small fortune on the requisite filtration technology to prepare for these issues). Intolerance of anything other than low nitrate levels, for example, is something that any Angelfish keeper will have to take on board and deal with in some manner (e.g., by using a macroalga refugium) and aggression on the part of some fishes is another management issue that needs to be planned for before purchasing (an extreme example being the Orange Striped Triggerfish, Balistapus undulatus, which will set about turning your aquarium into a species aquarium with just it in residence in pretty short order unless you can house it in a huge public aquarium). Then, if you plan to have more than one species present, the delicate matter of integrating all of the intended residents of the aquarium in such a manner that they don't see each other off is another skill that has to be learned.

It should come as no surprise to learn, in the light of all of this, that Dascyllus Damselfishes tend to be an acquired taste, and are usually avoided by experienced aquarists unless they have a specific interest in that group of fishes, and plan accordingly. Tough and forgiving Damselfishes may be, but that comes at a price, and with Dascyllus species, that price is a level of ferocity that can be utterly terrifying to behold if you haven't seen it first hand before.

Oh, while I'm continuing to write this epic post, welcome to the Board. You'll find a host of experts here, including people such as AcidRain and DarkRealm Overlord who have trodden this path a long time ago and are amply equipped to answer your questions on all things saltwater.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I have one that I`ve had for 9 + yrs. One of the first fish in the tank. He is still mean and territorial today but the only reason I`ve kept him is because he might harass the fish but never to the point of hurting them. After a few days they are OK.

wow! 9 years!! I hope I can take care of mine that well. You must be really great at this.

So here's some new news. I just added a Percula clown fish and an anemone to the tank. I was afraid that the Damsel but have a horrible reaction, but they've come to be great buddies! They follow each other all over the tank. I haven't seen them seperate since I put them in about 2 days ago.
The anemone is really cool, too! I've been feeding it small peices of shrimp and it's fun to watch it wrap it up and pull it towards it mouth. The damsel was curious of it at first, which made me really nervous, but it doesn't seem to pay any attention to it now. But the clownfish doesn't seem to care too much about it either. I know it's normal for it to not accept it right away, but I'd still like to see it take to it soon. Oh well, I still like having it and I'm sure I would have gotten one, even if I didn't get the clown [who I named Nemo, by the way.]

So tell me any new advice that I should here [and before you even think it, my lighting for the anemone is really good.]

1 Ocellaris Clown: $14.95...1 Pink Dottyback: $12.99...1 Three Striped Damsel: $4.50...1 Blue Velvet Damsel: $8.95
The Problems that come with them: Priceless

I dont know about great but I do care about my tankmates. Several of my fish are over 7 yrs old. I just do weekly PWC`s and take it personal when things go bad. Good Luck on your clown and anenome.