Damsel rubbing tail in blennies face?

[candide]

I've had a red lipped blennie in my QT for the past 2 weeks. Aparently the pump on the HOB filter of the QT died today while at work, and the blennie seemed to be panting a bit.

I cut the QT a few days early (this is the same place we have gotten all of our fish from, and she had been there for a while) and moved her into the main tank.

Well, now my big damsel, an Azure damsel, along with the other adult damsel is rubbing their tails against the blenny. I've never seen them do this before. Is this a sign of agression? The blenny just sorta lays there against the rock and blends in. As I write this the yellow head sleeper goby just started chasing away the damsels from her. I've NEVER seen him chase (or be chased, biggest fish in the tank, by far).

We also moved in a tank raised, very young neon dottyback. She/he is VERY shy. I'm a bit confused, as we got her only after having read bob fenner say that tank raised the neons and the fridmani aren't that bad. Yet I just spent all afternoon on reefcentral reading how these are the terrors of the deep. I'm really worried how that will turn out

He mentions it twice on the FAQ for dottybacks, but this is what I read:

>>
Some Dottybacks (Pseudochromis) can be tough as species and individual specimens, but both the Neons and Orchids are pretty mellow and consistent... as a consequence of being largely tank bred and reared (versus wild-collected). I say "go for it", but keep your eyes open...
Bob Fenner

 

[fishfanatic2]

since y0u already have other fish in the tank, i think itll work out fine, only time wil tell tho. :wink:

 

[cdeakle]

Damsels are the spawn of saton himself. Do a search through the Reefs.org and you will read plenty.

Sounds like your damsel is being the aggressor here. I once had an evil maroon clown fish that would use the same technique......

 

[krullulon]

in general, tank-raised fridmanis are way less aggressive than wild-caught.

orchid dottybacks are my favorite fish, and the tank raised ones i've seen have always been pretty mellow. i have a friend with a mated pair and they bicker with each other (very minor) but get along fine with the rest of the community. i don't know about the neons.

in fact, from what i've seen/read the tank-raised fridmanis (orchids) have a tendency to hide more when in a tank with larger, aggressive fish.

 

[candide]

Well, the blenny seems to be settling in, though she is still breathing a little fast. Once they found the little neon, they were all hovering around her. They would do the tail thing to her and get her pinned in a corner. I finally got her to get into the live rock and she seems ok now, has some hiding spots.

The neon is VERY VERY passive thus far. Even in the QT tank with just the blenny, she would hide a lot. I hope she doesn't go super psycho terror fish like I read, because she is so strikingly colored.

As to the damsels, I fel prey to the "cycle your tank with damsels" stuff that is out there os much, even if I didn't need to cycle really (bought friends existing tank). Now the wife likes them too much, and I kinda feel bad about taking them back to a store too. They really don't fight each other any, chase one another for a few inches now and then, but that is it. They seem to leave the 6lined wrasse, goby and clownfish alone after (especialy after the clownfish kicked the big damsels butt all around "his" hole). I'm hoping they leave these two alone too.

As always, thanks for the help and advice

 

[Anonymous]

the Neon should be fine. Just let him get settled in and sure enough he will nip the damsels.

When I added mine my yellow tail would do the same thing and after a few days the neon would bite the damsels

 

[Ijkreef]

I notice too that my damsel does the tail wagging thing to new fish that I add into my tank. Seems that she's shooing him away, a warning to the intruder that he is not welcome. However clowns are usually untouched, I wonder why?

The next step after tail waving will be actual chasing and fin-nipping. Which is why I'm planning to take down my tank to get that un-damsel-like fish out... sigh...

 

[fujianboy]

i have yellow tail damsels and an algae blenny in the same tank. the yellowtail and blenny used to get into fights all the time. same thing, territorial issues. the blenny would be sitting on a live rock and the yellowtail would come around and try to nip it or flip it's tail in the blenny's face.. at times, the blenny would swim to chase the yellowtail away.. at times the confrontation got pretty heated as they would swim/hover in front of each other for minutes, neither fish backing off... in the end, the blenny won and the yellow tail hasn't bothered it since.