Dottyback and Six Line Wrasse?

[Wrench]

I just got a Six Line from the LFS. From my research and speaking with local reefers, I was under the impression that they could hold their own in a tank with other semi agressive tankmates. My Dottyback, however, is bullying the heck out of my new wrasse. How long should I give them to get along before I get rid of one of them? The dottyback tried bullying some of my Chromis at first but when they fought back he learned his lesson. I am hoping that the Wrasse will do the same. Any thoughts?

[emoore]

What type of dottyback? You could try rearranging the rock. It might have been better to add the dottyback last. Do you have another place to put the dottyback for a while so the wrasse can get used to the tank in peace?

[thornbury]

Dottyback isn't going to back down anytime soon. The only reason why he doesn't attack the chromis anymore may be because they're in groups... and harder to intimidate. Individual small fish however, won't have a chance to live in a dottyback's territory... even my humbug damsel, who's more aggressive and seems to bully him, didn't intimidate him and he kept fighting back. I had to return the humbug last month.

I hope your dottyback is the orchid dottyback... it's supposedly the mildest of all.

[Wrench]

The Dottyback is a Diadem. I've been trying to catch it with little luck. Any tips?

[thornbury]

No idea... at first I wanted to catch my dottyback (royal/ bi-color) also but he was so hard to catch so I decided to catch the humbug instead and returned him to the shop. The humbug swims in the open, unlike dotty who can hide in caves until he feels it's safe.

[Wrench]

I want the dotty gone since he's more agressive than I thought. Looks like I'll be breaking the tank down tonight to get the bugger out.

[Wrench]

I got home from work an hour or so ago and glued my eyes to the tank for that time. What I saw was the agression level of the thug dottyback is much less than last night and this morning. On a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst, I'd say it's down to 3-4. The dottyback will chase the wrasse if they come close but not with the amount of agression as before. He doesn't seek out the wrasse either like he did before. You think I'll be ok for now? I'm moving in a month or two so it would be easier to get rid of the dottyback then when I break down the tank as opposed to tearing it down now just to catch him.

[Cantonesefish]

I had the exact same problem - my bicolor dottyback was bullying my sixline wrasse. I tried to wait and see if it would resolve, but although things seemed to get better once in a while, it definitely was on a downward trend. At length, the dottyback chases the wrasse into the overflow box, which was the last straw.

Removing the dottyback was a pain; it was eventually accomplished by taking out the rock it was hiding in, and shaking it out into another container. If you can, try and hold out until you'll break down the tank, but if things escalate you might have to remove one of them. Good luck!

[marcusbacus]

Sorry to revive such an old thread, but I am having the same issues here, with an orange tail dottyback (sold to me as a Pseudochromis cyanotaenia/surge dottyback but it looks more like the orange tail...) with some small diferences of the situation described above. What is interesting here though is that when I added a diadem a couple weeks ago (said to be a real problem) the diadem was bullyed a lot by the other dotty and lost part of its tail but the fight didn't last for more than 20 mins, each one went to his side of the tank and things are fine since.

Today I added a six line and almost immediately the orange tail started to harass the six line, which never replied any attack. It is now at the bottom corner of the tank, at the top, but it doesn't seem too scared (yet) although he can't much leave that place for now. It even ate some flakes already but it just seem to not be able to leave that particular spot yet. It's not a full-time harassment but whenever the dottyback is closer to the six-line it goes there and does some stuff.

The dottyback never bothered any other fish that came after him (if it's an orange tail, it's a he, if it's really a surge, it's a female). The six line didn't even tried to find a cave or something either... the lights will turn off in an hour or so, hopefully it can fix things up a bit.

[marcusbacus]

And the bullying has stopped, pretty much like what happened with the diadem. The six line is still living at the top part though and just goes down when it's time to sleep.