Chromis with an attitude....what do I do?

[Mouse51180]

I have 2 chromis fish. Since I bought them the larger one has tormented the smaller one chasing it around the tank. It has gotten worse over the last week or so.

I bought a Sallyfoot crab, Emerald Green crab, and a Cleaner shrimp this weekend. The large chromis (with the attitude) has left the shrimp and the emerald crab alone, but I caught him 3-4 times last night trying to take nips out of the Sallyfoot crab. The crab would run under a rock and the chromis would still try and pick at him and then would loose interested and 20-30 min later try again.

These are tine fish and I fed them twice yesterday, so I know that he is not trying to attack the crab because he is hungry. And I have told him that he doesnt eat crab meat and he need to stop tormenting the other fish, but he just doesnt listen very well either.

What do most people do with a bad fish? Do I need to look into taking him back to the pet store? I am not sure my pet store would take him back or not. If they dont...what are my option?

 

[Anonymous]

Being a member of the damselfish family, chromis can be a good of a SOB as other members.

Almost all LFS will take "donation," but try to see if you can get a buck or two of store credit for it...

 

[Anonymous]

Ditto what dupaboy1992 said!
~wings~

 

[J.Howard]

Don't know the size of your tank, but I do know that chromis will behave if they are in larger groups of an un-even number. When I started my last tank, I thought the major cycle was over and bought 5 chromis to start. When the water quality started to fluctuate, I lost 3 in rapid succession, and the larger of the 2 left would do the same as you are describing. You may just try to get 2 or 3 more ( I know I said odd numbers cause I read it recently, but if space is an issue...). Eventually, they all died , but when the tank fully cycled, I bought 5 more and they are attention getters with shoaling behavior and very nice to each other. Hope this helps.

 

[Mouse51180]

I have an 80 gallon tank. When I bought the fish there were 3 in the tank at the LFS. 2 were nice and 1 was not. I asked for the 2 nice ones, but looks like the mean one got in the bag.

 

[Anonymous]

Now you know why one of the three looked bad in the tank...

 

[Anonymous]

FWIW I've heard the same as what J.Howard has mentioned. Don't know if an 80 would be big enough for 5 or not though..

 

[Anonymous]

Easily big enough. You could even do 6. That's the size I have and they don't show any aggression to each other.

What species is it?

 

[rabagley]

With shoaling fish, you have to have a small group to distribute the attention/aggression. In FW, the classic example is the zebra danio. Tough and hardy, they look very peaceful in the LFS tank in a group of 20-30 and the LFS will quite happily take your $0.50 for a pair of zebra danios (though why is beyond me)

Put just two in a tank, though, and watch out. One is stronger and within weeks is simply shredding the other one. Put five in the same tank, however, and there's no problem. They're still chasing each other around the tank, but the tails are almost entirely intact and nobody seems particularly picked on.

A very similar situation exists with chromis. The chromis are some of the more peaceful of the damsels, but for those chromis species which are shoaling, they're only really behaving naturally when in a group. I don't know where the "odd number is better" rule comes from, but three is usually not enough, and five is usually a good number with four leaving a question mark and definitely poor behavior if you lose one. More than five is going to be just fine, so I wouldn't worry about having six instead of seven, if that's how things work out.

If you have two cyan or green chromis now, I'd recommend three more as quickly as possible.

Regards,
Ross