Fish relocation?

[tomato clown]

I am starting to get tired with my 5gal. set up here, due to the extreme maintenance. Its home to my Blue Damsel at the moment.
My question is can I place him into my reef tank with a 3in. clown trigger and 5in. Maroon Clown? Its a small 30gal. set up at the moment untill my 120gal. is set-up.
If not, will he be ok in the 26gal. with the Regal Tang?
Dan

 

[tyrfing]

It probably comes down to how long you're going to place him in there and what the personality of the fish currently are. How big is he? Damsels are devils as far as aggression goes and the maroon clows are also aggressive. If you only have those three fish in a 26 gallon, you should be okay, but again, you're pushing the limit. Kind of depends how long you want to leave him in there and if you're willing to lose him. I had a couple yellow tail damsels that use to pick at my Lionfish's rays. Little weasels....

 

[tyrfing]

Sorry, just re-read your post. Didn't realize it was a clown trigger. If you absolutely have to break down the 5 gallon, I would put the damsel in with the Regal. He'll probably kack or get eaten with the clown and trigger. Watch him though, if he starts pestering the tang, you may want to move him back to the 5.

 

[400galloncharlie]

Back in college, I had a 29 gallon with a huma huma trigger, a porcupine puffer (who would bite the glass on occassion), a snowflake eel and a blue damsel. The blue damsel (which I had purchased to condition the tank) was big; the rest were (as you can imagine) small, although they were all in there for at least one 1 year before moving to a 55 gal. Everything was fine and dandy, and the blue damsel seemed happy to hold his own, until one summer day (when the water may have warmed up a little too much) when the porcupine puffer out of nowhere completely chomped the damsel in half, which was by that time about the same size as the puffer. The moral of the story is that the trigger never messed with him, so it will depend on the size of the damsel in relation to the other fish.