Favorite Damselfish?

[steeler1]

When I first got into Marine fish and nobody was using a fishless cycle, we all used damselfish to "seed" our tanks because of their toughness and hardiness.

My first seeders were yellow tailed damselfish. After awhile and many expensive books I discovered that there were many beautiful damselfish avaiable besides the ones kept at the LFS. However most of us were so into keeping the more sensative spieces and overlooked them.

I finally found these; Beau Gregory (Eupomacentrus leucostictus) and they became my favorite damselfish but I was never able to find them again and I eventually returned to freshwater tanks.

Anyway what is your favorite Damselfish?

[Allecto]

I don't keep them, but just based on looks I think it is hard to beat the humble little Blue Green Chromis.

I love Domino Damsels, too. Both as sharply colored little babies, and as duller adults with edged scales.

[Cliff]

I`ve aways thought the yellow tail damsels and the blue damsels are very nice looking fish

I would not mind a aggrressive FOWLR set-up one day with a larger school of them.

[koaladarshana]

I've seen Garibaldis at my local science center aquarium and they are something to behold!

[kaybee]

Garibaldi damselfish are among the best one's that I've seen (though I've never owned one); they get fairly large, the one I saw was nearly a foot long.

Appearance-wise I also like the juvenile neon velvet damsels. Here's a picture of the one I had when it was young:



Unfortunately as they mature neon velvets lose all the blue colors and nearly all the white, becoming primarily solid dull black/brown fish with faint ash markings (kind of a reverse-ugly duckling affect).

Azure damsels are probably my next favorite, they can be a pain though because they tend to bite my hand and love to dislodge new coral frags that I place in my tank:

[Indian Woods Angels]

The Garibaldi is very cool. For a while it was on the list of fish that were protected from collection.

[koaladarshana]

kaybee, your damsels look great and those pictures are awesome! Keep up the good work!

[mermaidwannabe]

I've always liked the blue ones with the yellow tails, and also the all-blue ones. The black-and-white striped damsels are cool, too.

Garibaldis -- in the shallow waters off of the Pacific coast there are bright orange Garibaldis, quite common, really. The locals refer to them as "saltwater goldfish". I saw a lot of those when I lived in southern California. Not sure if the bright orange variety is also a species of damselfish, but it could get quite large and was really vibrant.

--mermaidwannabe