Starcki damsels

[Naraku]

Has anyone experience:

Small starcki die from shock while large starcki are fine?

[caribfan]

I have some experience with starcki. It's been my experience that they are not a hardy fish by any means.

I owned one for several years that died after it sustained some kind of trauma. Possibly a stroke?? The fish would list to one side. It lived like that for the better part of a year. I never did see any aggression or see that it got attacked, so I'm not sure where the trauma came from.

The second one came from a friends tank, it had been in captivity for close to a year. I acclimated it as normal and placed it in quarantine, but for some reason, it only lasted a few weeks.

I'm not sure what the secret to these fish is, but I think they have developed a reputation as being one of the more difficult damsels to keep. at least in my experience.

[ThRoewer]

I have 5 of them, one single in my 42 gallon tank and and a group of four in my 100 gallon tank.
I would say that they are as hardy as most other Damselfish, but they are much harder to find in stores and often arrive in not the best shape.

Due to their tiny mouths they are not good fighters. The four are regularly losing confrontations with my three Grammas which are smaller but have far more impressive mouths. Most of the time all the Gramma have to do is to open their mouths and the Starcki damsels will back off.
If you have starcki with more aggressive fish they may get easily bullied by more aggressive fish. The one I have alone in the 42 is at the bottom of the hacking order. My Bali Regal Angel, who is the same size, is the boss of that tank.

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[BlueMac92]

Less hardy than other damsels, but still hardy. I would agree that they do come in pretty rough. Their more timid nature can lead to bullying from similar fish as well.

I'd snap a picture of mine, but he's a **** and picked a cave in the back of my tank as his home.

[Achilles Torben]

My 6 starcki in my old tank lost the bright yellow after a few weeks. So I will never buy them again.

Greetings Torben

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[ThRoewer]

My Starcki damsels all still have their yellow. They are all from the the South Pacific, either Australia, Melanesia or Polynesia.
The ones from the northern distribution, Indonesia, Philippines, Micronesia,... are most likely a separate species.
This might be a reason for the varying experiences with them.
Also, genetic analysis has shown that starckii (northern or southern) are not at all closely related to the genus Chryspitera which they currently placed in. Their closest relative is a fairly unsightly Damselfish from the tropical East Pacific.

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