Bicolour dottyback

[boxerzz]

anyone has this ? Mine got defensive and aggressive the second day in my tank and my sand goby died a few days after I put this one in. And he is an agressive eater. They look small but have a huge attitude. Anyone else can share their dottyback experience ?

[dbuesking]

my royle dottyback was one of the first fish that i bought. since then i have added eight other fish and i have seen no agression.

[Avi]

Those have a documented nature of being particularly aggressive dottybacks. Others in the dottyback family aren't nearly so aggressive and some can be kept together in one tank.

[boxerzz]

my bicolour seems pretty aggressive, my chormis seem to have trouble defending his terrority from him.

[steri]

I have one (Purple Line/BiColor Dottyback). Yes they are territorial. He was the last fish I put into my tank. He has a ton of caves to hide in, which I think helps control his dominance some. I was lucky that my angels became friends with the other fish in my tank first, because as soon as the dottyback (psuedochromis) started acting aggressive, my angels put him in his place, and he stopped bothering others.

With a dottyback, you need to be concerned about ever adding another fish to the display. He WILL be aggressive with anything new added to the tank (at least with anything remotely small in size like gobies, clowns, chromis, ect). It's not a matter of IF, he will, unless you add something like a trigger or a huge fish.

And yes, they are aggressive eaters.

[steri]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11094825#post11094825 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dbuesking
my royle dottyback was one of the first fish that i bought. since then i have added eight other fish and i have seen no agression.

Do you mind if I ask what you got in the 125 after the dottyback? That's great that he didn't get agressive, I'm just suprised. I'd like to know what you got, just in case I ever get the itch for a new fish again ;)

[boxerzz]

My chromis seems to be bothered by him. I see a slash on his side today. I feel really sad and hurt. The fish the dotty don't bother is my heraldi angel which is slightly larger than him. I have only 3 fish. I feel like taking out dotty.

[Avi]

There seem to be some dottybacks that aren't agressive at all. I have a Fridmanni and and Arabian in my 125 and the don't even harrass one another. I've added a good number of fish after they've established themselves with no problems. There's even a Royal Gramma in the tank who has no problem with them nor them from it.

[boxerzz]

Other people with bicolour dotty please post your experience of the fish.

[dbuesking]

I now have 1 blue jawed trigger, 2 nemos, 1 rusty angel, 1 PJ cardnal, 1 yellow tang, 1 sail fin tang , 1 regal blue tang. I tried to add a flame angel about 1 month ago but the rusty almost killed him. I found him behind the ouerflow box the next morning. Put him ( flame) in refug. untill he was healthy. Then I found him a new home. Rusty stresed out and got ick. But it left after adding garlic to food for two weeks. Good luck

[steri]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11102122#post11102122 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by dbuesking
I now have 1 blue jawed trigger, 2 nemos, 1 rusty angel, 1 PJ cardnal, 1 yellow tang, 1 sail fin tang , 1 regal blue tang. I tried to add a flame angel about 1 month ago but the rusty almost killed him. I found him behind the ouerflow box the next morning. Put him ( flame) in refug. untill he was healthy. Then I found him a new home. Rusty stresed out and got ick. But it left after adding garlic to food for two weeks. Good luck

I don't know what that had to do with Dottybacks, but I can tell you why your Rusty almost killed the flame. Mixing angels is a very delicate process. You can not mix two dwarf angels in a tank, unless the tank is just enormous. When you put a second dwarf angel into an exsisting tank, the first angel will almost always dominate the second one to the point of death.

The reason I am able to have 2 angels in my tank (so I am told) is 2 fold: 1) I added them at the exact same time, and 2) one is a dwarf and the other is a large angel. Because one is a dwarf and the other is a large, they are different body types and are not threatened by each other. If I would have added 2 large angels, they would have fought as well.

Don't get me wrong, I have seen people with 2 dwarfs in their tanks, but it's pretty rare. You just have to make sure that the body types (not just the colors) are different, and the best chance for success is by adding them to the tank at the exact same time. The only situations I have found of 2 dwarfs living in harmony are coral beautys and Lemon Peels, and I've only seen that twice.

[boxerzz]

I had a coral beauty and a heraldi together. They started off rather territorial towards each other but a few days after they got used to each other.