Adding Chromis

[eianson]

All,

My tank has had a weak cycle (nitrites never went above 0.15) and I'll probably be adding fish within a week. I would like to get a clown pair, but I figure I should go with some green chromis first as a hardier addition. My question is I am looking to have 3-4 chromis in the tank. Should I add them one at a time (to avoid a heavy bioload), in stages (2 at first then 1 per week) or all at once (since they are small fish)? Any opinions are appreciated.

Thanks,
Eric

[MalHavoc]

When in doubt, go slowly. Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank.

[hwynboy]

Id start with one or two and progress from there...at least 3 weeks to a month.

[Gem Tang Rider]

In a 75 gal tank I would think 2 chromis & 2 peppermint shrimp would be a good start.

[NeuroLarry]

I added 6 to my 120 and didn't see a blip in the parameters. I cycled with fully cured LR and waited a good month after what little spike I got to add the fish. My thinking being that some people( but not anybody here) still cycle their tank with damsels. If anything could tolerate it these cyanide-collected survivors probably could.

[eianson]

Bumping for a few more opinions.

[tanker]

I would add all at once (just the 4 small Chromis), then from then on go very slow. IMO--chromis is the weakest of the damsels. I think they delicate. Domino damsel is the hardiest, but also the nastiest, and will fight with each other and everything else.

[eianson]

Last bump.

[reefgal]

First off a note to NeuroLarry - fish poisoned with cyanide don't survive. They can take up to six months to slowly die from internal damage.

eianson - how big is the tank? If it is 75 gallons...adding three small chromis at once is probably okay. Just a couple of comments:

1) Clownfish are in the damsel family and a pair of captive propagated clownfish are extremely hardy. There is no reason you couldn't add your pair of clownfish first. (This is assuming, of course, that you DON'T plan to add an anemone. Anemones should only be kept by advanced hobbyists with well-established (read over one year old) tanks. And even then, the best are captive propagated E. quadricolor anemones.) May I suggest a pair of immature clowns? Smaller fish, smaller bioload...they may fight at first. The dominate one will become female and other will become a sexually mature male. Voila! You have a pair.

2) I wouldn't add ANY other type of damsel to my tank besides chromis and clownfish. My experience is that the other members of the damsel family are too aggressive and/or dig holes in the sandbed. I have a deep sandbed and this causes BIG problems for me.

3) It's almost always best to go slow when adding animals to your tank. You need to give your biological filter time to adjust itself to the new bioload. Patience is the single hardest thing in this hobby, IMO.

Best of luck.

[pjmoore]

I added 4 at once to my tank, but had one die 3 days later. I only saw a small increase in the nitrates, however, at the time I did not realize I was using an unreliable test kit. I have since read that many people recommend adding chromis in odd numbered groups.

[AQUA951]

What about adding 12 chromis at one time to a 240 gal? Is that too much?

[eianson]

I chose chromis over clowns first because they are less aggressive. I thought that once one of the basics. Add least aggressive first, most aggressive last.

Eric

[krish]

I added 5 green chromis to my 120G after it completed cycle.
I added fully cured LR. I still do not have any skimmer. The
fish droppings are cleaned up by the bristleworms over night.
I have macro algae and coraline growing crazy. Esp after a
water change, i see the coraline take off.
I also added 5 blue and 5 red leg hermits and 10 snails. The
snails are getting killed. But i don't care. My tank does not
smell,since the bio filter is wonderful. The snail remains are
gone in a day and the shell is empty. A lot of bristleworms,
2 peanut worms and more critters to name.

I added 2 small tank raised oscellais.
I had them in QT for 2 weeks and
introduced them into the display tank. No issues in water
stability. When they were in QT in a 5 gallon tank, at one
point, the water became murky and i immediately changed
water and ran carbon in the QT. One of the clown indicated
that it was not happy and was sticking to the surface of the
water. A real red flag. The tank raised stock is hardy. The
royal gramma that i had in the same QT was wild caught and
it died under mysterious circumstances. I had 2 pepermints
in the same QT tank. Don't know what happened in
there over night.

Now regarding your question, the 5 chromis seem to be fine.
But i have seen that there is some agression amongst themselves. They tend to stay in a group of 3. The other 2 are
in the rocks most of the time. They actually get chased into
the rocks. I am wondering if the addition of a 6th one will
create 2 groups.

They seem to put up with the little clowns. One of my clown
is a great headache. He seems to like getting into the
overflow chamber and then find its way to the sump. Get a
juvenile one. You can get it cheap and also make them a
breeding pair. Not that breeding would be easy.

-krish

[tanker]

Aqua909-- That sounds OK. When they all settled and tank all cycles you will have your healthy 7-8 strong chromis. (LOL). They the weakest of the damsels.

I hope you plan on keeping them, You will never be able to catch them ever again.

[NeuroLarry]

For some reason most peple recommend keeping chromis in odd numbered groups. It's my understanding taht most of the chromis we get are cyanide captured, at least thats what I have read. think thats why when we add several at once one or two don't last long.

[MaryHM]

There are plenty of net caught Green Chromis available. You just have to know where to look. They come from lots of different countries- Fiji, Solomons, Tonga, etc... Honestly, I think the main cause of death for them is shipping from overseas to the US. They are packed EXTREMELY tight. I have my suppliers pack them looser, and we have less than 1% DOA and DAA on them. One of the hardiest fish I carry.

[naesco]

Green chromis may be a common and inexpensive fish.

The key to avoiding ones caught with cyanide is to avoid purchasing fish from the Philippines and Indonesia where the use of cyanide is rampant.

As was pointed out, green chromis are available from many other countries.

[NeuroLarry]

Thats good to know thanks, I assume the LFS would knowbut will they tell you the truth?