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From: richard@gryphon.UUCP
Newsgroups: alt.aquaria,rec.pets
Subject: Re: Nitrification...
Message-ID: <2465@gryphon.CTS.COM>
Date: Thu, 3-Dec-87 00:58:14 EST
Article-I.D.: gryphon.2465
Posted: Thu Dec  3 00:58:14 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 6-Dec-87 15:36:25 EST
References: <7044@pur-ee.UUCP> <155@bacchus.DEC.COM> <2426@gryphon.CTS.COM> <355@nrc-ut.UUCP>
Reply-To: richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton)
Distribution: na
Organization: Trailing Edge Technology, Redondo Beach, CA
Lines: 58
Keywords: Damsels
Xref: utgpu alt.aquaria:28 rec.pets:1666
Summary: Good advice. A postscript on Damsels.

In article <355@nrc-ut.UUCP> andre@nrc-ut.UUCP (Andre' Hut) writes:
>
>Stay away from damsel fish.  They are real cute,
>but aggresive fish, and eventually all your other fish will stop eating.

They have their place.

There is no doubt they are nasty little buggers. One in a tank is 
a disaster. It'll chase everything.

Two is a worse situation. They will either fight all the time or one
will keep the other cowering in a corner all the time.

So how do you keep them ? In numbers.

Put 30 of them is a 100 gallon tank with 2 or 3  *BIG* pieces of coral
and you have an extremely impressive display.

They can also be mixed. Sure.

You can mix three spot ("Domino") damsels with three stripe damsels (these
two are about the nastiest I recall).

Or the elecric blue ones.

The black one with the blue stripes (what are they calling that thing these
days) Abudefduf saxitallis, is one of the more peaceful damsels, and I have
succesfully kept it with copperband butterflies, dwarf angels, fish of that
temprement. No problems.

To summerize, damsels can be kept alone in a tank by themselve or in large
groups. They dont mix well with other fish. Hardy as hell.

>
>Don't fall into the trap of getting a bunch of the nitrifying bacteria, and
>a boatload of fish and hoping that things will work out.  I tried this
>when I first started out in salt-water fish, and it worked for about two
>weeks.  Then I had about $120 worth of dead fish.
>-- 
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-- 
Richard J. Sexton
INTERNET:     richard@gryphon.CTS.COM
UUCP:         {hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, ihnp4, nosc}!crash!gryphon!richard

"It's too dark to put the keys in my ignition..."