Distressed Damsels?

[holloway]

I just set up my tank on the 12th of june. Water is "normal", keeping a close eye on it. I have about 350 lbs. LR- 300lbs. live sand. I started the tank by adding 12 damsels (LFS recommendation) to cycle the tank. Lost one immediately . Looked as if he had ick. The rest are hardy. I also have one feather duster, a green zoo coral, 2 cleaner shrimp, a lawnmower blenny, and a horseshoe crab. My goal is to have a non aggressive reef. Are the damsels going to be troublesome? I'm told they will be very territorial and aggressive to any new fish no matter what size. I've also been told good luck cathing them. What would you do? I don't wanna have a bunch of fin nibblers attaching future residents. Also, I want to add the 100 gal + reef package this website sells to try and get my forming algea under control. When would my tank be ready. When should I start my water changes and how much?

 

[holloway]

the damsels are...
4 blue green chromis
1 yellowtail blue
2 striped blacktail
2reticulate dascyllus
2 domino

 

[nm reef]

A couple of things....first are you monitoring your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels during the cycle? If so post current readings. Myself I'd avoid using damsels to cycle a system and look into using raw shrimp to initiate the cycle...or even just use a quality un-cured LR to cycle with. I'd seriously consider removing the damsels...also the few shrimp/corals you've added may be in trouble...they don't handle the cycling process well at all. Once the cycle is complete and your ammonia/nitrite/nitrate return to zero then you can begin building your populations of coral etc. The crew you are considering would be a good choice...but again not until after the cycle completes....and like I mentioned...I'd look at removing or reducing the number of damsels...they are agressive and often become problematic.

 

[oregonbud]

Everything NM said and this - I did the same thing (except with a smaller tank and only 4 damsels) my tank has cycled completely, and the 3 damsels that survived are mean.
They pick on pretty much everything else in the tank, including each other, two will buddy up and pick on the single one until it fights back. I have been told that using them for cycling makes them even more tempermental then normal when the cycle is finished.
Personally I can't wait to get rid of them but they are a pain to catch without destroying my tank, so my two cents for what its worth is to get rid of them now if you can - use the dead shrimp method to finish up your cycle, I may be incorrect but I would assume that you would have some die off with the LS and LR that you have and your cycle has started, so I dont even know if dead shrimp would be necessary to finish the cycle out.

 

[kiddow]

a while back i rid my tank of a mean/killer damsel, heres how
i took a 20oz plastic coke bottle and cut it in half where it begins to narrow to the spout, i then put the spout end upside down into the other half, then i didnt feed the fish for a night and then i put fish food into the bottle and put it where i could watch it, it took a while but finally the damsel went into the bottle and i quickly grabbed it out of the tank, it may take you a while with all the damsels you have but one less at a time is better than none
good luck