[Inaudible].
Well, what did I say, damsels? I'm also going to include clownfish now,
before you say, wait, Hilary, well,
efficient damsels are two separate types of fish, actually. They're not.
So if you look back at the different families,
Poma center day is a type of thin raid fish.
It's a family of fish and it includes both clownfish and damsels,
which is why I'm lumping both of these guys together in one video.
Now here's the thing. There's a bunch of different kinds of damsels out there,
and there's a whole bunch of different kinds of clownfish.
They come in a variety of designer, patterns and colors and, you know,
even shapes it just there's more and more every day.
So I'm going to try and keep it relatively basic and break it down in to,
um,
the three different species of clownfish that are on the market that are really
popular for hobbyists.
And I'm going to break it down into some of the most common damsels that you're
going to see in your local fish store.
So let's go ahead and get started with those damsels.
So first off is going to be our blue damsel.
They're pretty common standard fish, beautiful blue color. Um,
you can have them by themselves. You can add them in groups. Um,
they add a lot of color and a lot of flow to your tank.
One of the next common species of damsels that you'll see in local fish stores
is Cronus.
Now you can find them as green Chromos blue chromas blue-green Chromos a lot of
times those names depend on where they're coming from.
If they're going to be from Fiji or somewhere else in the wild,
that's where they get their names from, but beautiful, beautiful blue, blue,
green fish, just, just so much color.
Next is going to be our yellow tail damsel.
That's another one that I see quite frequently.
I've got that same beautiful Royal blue body with a bright yellow tail. Um,
those are, those are pretty popular among hobbyist.
Next is the domino damsel. Now I don't see them quite as frequently,
but I would say that they're one of the larger species of damsels that are out
there that occasionally do get put in tanks.
Now I will warn you some species of damsels,
including some of the ones that I haven't talked about today can get very feisty
and very aggressive.
So do your research before you buy or add any fish to your tank.
I know people that have added domino damsels to their tank and have had a heck
of a time getting them out. So use caution before adding anything. All right,
let's go ahead and move on to our clownfish.
So there's three different species of clownfish.
There's more than three that are out on the market,
but the three most prevalent there are going to be the per Kula,
the OSS and the bicycle Addis, like I said, there's some other ones out there.
So don't,
please don't be upset if I've forgotten your favorite type of clownfish,
the Pakula and the oscillators look very similar,
but there's a couple of differences that you can look at to tell them apart.
So Osceola areas are sometimes called the false per Kula,
but if you look at the Pakula, they're going to have a little bit more orange,
your eyes versus the Solaris that will have slightly redder eyes. Now,
another thing you can look at,
if you are looking at their patterns on their body,
the Pakula are going to have the black lines on them are going to be just a
little bit thicker than you would find on the Asuras.
Now no one really true way to tell them apart.
And I don't recommend trying this. I can see like picture it now,
like staring at a tank at a local fish store,
trying to count their dorsal spines.
So the per Kula will have 10 dorsal spines versus the OSS.
Hilarious that we'll have 11. Alright,
now that I've kind of given you a rundown between the differences between the
two. So again, these guys are very popular.
They've been bred. You can, um,
they can breed together and create all sorts of designer varieties,
and I'm not going to try naming them all today, but, um, you know,
you could just see some of the photos. If you go online and Google there's,
there's tons of variety out there. Now,
the next one that I mentioned is the bison collage.
They're going to be a little bit bigger than the Pakula and hilarious.
And in my experience,
I feel like they tend to be a little bit more aggressive than the other two.
Um, those are going to be your lightenings, your Maroons. They're really,
really pretty fish, but a little bit larger and more aggressive.
All right. So when it comes to putting your clowns and your damsels in tank,
what size should you go with now?
All of these fish that I've talked about today, for the most part,
they're going to stay about two to three inches,
maybe a little bit larger. If you have just one of them,
you could probably keep them really in a nano reef about 20 gallons,
anywhere up, you know, as large of tanks as you want to keep them in.
Alright,
that sums up everything for the different size tanks they need and all of the
different groups let's go and talk about their diet,
damsels and clownfish, as you might have guessed are omnivores,
which means they're going to eat a variety of veggies and meat foods.
So I am as usual going to break things down into a couple of
different food categories that you can buy that are commercially available.
But before I get into it, I'm curious,
leave a comment below and let me know what your damsels and clownfish his
favorite foods are going to be.
Now I've mentioned this in some of the other videos before, um,
clownfish and damsels both have relatively small amounts.
So that's definitely something to keep in mind when you are selecting food for
them. Let's go ahead and get into some of those dry foods. Now,
first off is going to be the flake foods,
as you might have observed some of your clownfish and damsels,
hang out towards the top and middle of the water column.
And if you look at where their mouth is located,
some of those clownfish even have upwards, um, directed mouse,
which means they're able to eat stuff on the surface without any problem.
That means that those flakes are going to be a good option for those clownfish.
And even those damsels. Next up, you have all of your palate foods.
Now this really is just up to your preference and whatever other fish that you
might have in the tank.
But I encourage you to look for things that have us small size.
So first off is the reef. Nutrition, TDO policies are relatively small.
They come in a couple of different sizes.
So these are a good one for your clownfish. And if you are feeding corals,
you can use this for some of those larger corals as well.
Next is going to be the new life spectrum thera foods.
It's just a good well-balanced well-rounded food.
Just make sure you get one with the right pallet size.
I recommend about half the size of your fish's mouth. Now,
the last pallet I'm going to talk about today is the NIOS goji Berry pellet.
This has some of that axes, Anthony in it, which if you have a clownfish,
one of those, um, Maroons or any of them that have darker orange and red colors,
this is going to be great.
It will help to pop their colors and just really enhance those bright reds
and some of the darker oranges. So consider feeding this one as well. All right,
moving on to the DIY foods, I've only got one today.
And the reason that I'm going to talk about it, it's this Dr. Tim's DIY food.
If you have to give your fish medication,
this is actually a really great one to use.
You can mix that medication up in the food and feed it directly to your fish.
So this is definitely one that you can consider now,
if you're not sure how to make the DIY foods check out one of my other videos,
I've got a full instructional, um,
breakdown on how to make this and some of the other gel ideas.
Okay, let's move on to frozen foods. Now, again,
I'm going to give you a warning,
make sure that you keep in mind find the size of your fish's mouth, right?
A lot of the prepared,
frozen meaty foods that are out on the market are kind of geared towards those
larger predators. So if you've got one of those predator, frozen blends,
make sure that you got some pieces in there, small enough for the clowns.
Now through just feeding clowns, you can use something like the reef multipack.
It's got a bunch of those blister packs in there. You can pop one out.
They have a lot of small pieces in there that made the grapes clownfish and
those tassels. Another one is Brian trip. Again,
real small pieces of meaty foods, easy for them to eat.
Another blister pack that you can use is the prime reef. Again,
if you've only got a few fishes, this is great for nano tanks.
You can do bust out one of the little blisters and you're good to go.
You don't have to thought a whole bunch of food. Now,
lastly is the PE mices.
Now this is a little bit higher in protein and higher in fat.
And it's going to great. If you are trying to get clownfish to breed, um,
that's those higher fat content and those higher proteins are going to be what
they need to start laying those eggs. Now there's other foods out on the market.
LRS has one is called fertility frenzy, or used to be called who's your daddy,
but that's another great one I've used personally and would recommend for, um,
helping to get your fish to spawn in the tank. All right,
that takes care of everything, diet wise and nutrition.
But let's go ahead and talk about some of the issues that your clouds and
damsels might face.
Onto a more serious matter.
We're going to talk about some of the issues that your damsels and clownfish
might face. Now,
if you've spent any time reading or hearing people talk about clownfish,
you might have heard of Brooke Ella or clownfish disease or even
velvet. Now those are two things that are very specific to clownfish though.
Other fish can catch them and can be susceptible to them.
And so velvet is going to present itself almost like it
does,
but they're probably going to see a lot more of those little white pinprick
spots all over the fish. And if your fish have broken Vela,
you might notice them being very lethargic or covered in a lot of mucus or kind
of like a white slime sort of thing. And if you see any of those symptoms,
hopefully you're able to notice them far in advance and you can treat now
a lot of times the treatments for these are very, very similar. Um,
I've heard people use copper,
although I tend to personally stay away from copper. Um,
just because it tends to be a lot more work for you and that you have to take
the fish out of the tank. Um,
I like to use freshwater dips.
I think that will help a lot. Um, it's something that I use on a regular basis.
Um, if you get your fish out, you can treat with something like quick cure.
If you've seen these videos before, you know that I'm a big fan of this stuff,
um, and also safety stop.
Now safety stop is blank by blue life USA.
I highly recommend using this before you ever put your fish in the tank and
before you put them through core team,
but you can also use it after they've been in your tank for a while.
If you noticed them being sick.
Another common thing that you see in clownfish and in damsels as well is urine
NEMA. Now I've talked about that before.
I've actually had a clownfish to get urinate and was able to survive it because
I caught it fast enough.
And I used a combination of quick cure and the safety stock in addition to low
solidity. So that, that will really be helpful and something else.
This is flukes. A lot of times when the damsels come in,
you can't necessarily see those flukes,
but if you put them in a fresh water bath or fresh water dip,
or even in the safety stop,
you will probably be able to see some of those flukes coming off of their body
and floating around in the water column.
So if you are able to catch that before they go into the tank, all the better.
Now there are a few that you can do preventative wise and
before your fish ever gets sick. So first off,
when you add your fish consider using first defense by Dr. Tims,
it's really a great product stress-relief and immune boosting,
but something that you can do on a day-to-day basis when you are feeding your
fish is vitamins, right?
So Brightwell aquatics is probably one of my favorite,
my favorite line of vitamins and vitamin M it's a multivitamin.
You can put it on their food. Um, another one that I really love,
and this is really good. If you've got just a small tank with clownfish,
you think about when you use your food. Um,
a lot of times you're not able to go through that whole container of food and
some of the vitamins that are naturally occurring in there might evaporate.
So vitamin C is one of those things that I really recommend to put on your food.
Um, especially if it's been open for more than three months,
this is a really good one. Another thing that you can use is a main Omega.
I use this on a fairly regular basis for most of my fish and it is
really good just adding those extra aminos to them. And this is really good too.
Um, if your fish are recovering, if you've been sick,
if you are trying to get them back on that path to better health,
consider adding some vitamins to their diet.
That's something else that you can do to ensure that your fish are living
healthy lives is adding a little bit of enrichment.
So enrichment is basically just any type of small change that you can do to make
in their environment.
If you think about fish out in the wild on wild reefs are swimming around and
seeing new stuff all the time.
So that is where enrichment comes in now with clownfish
and with damsels, you can change up the flow in their tank. Think about that.
Like if there, if you've got a whole bunch of them,
especially if you change up the flow pattern, it gives them a new current,
so swim in and around, and that might make it fun next, as always,
you can change up the type of food that you're feeding them. You know,
maybe you have one type of food for, you know,
the weekends and one type of food for during the week.
You can change the times that you're feeding them.
You can change where you're feeding them at in the tank. Now,
another thing you can do, and this is very specific to clownfish.
If you are trying to get them to breed and reproduce in your tank,
I know a lot of people and I've done this when I've helped to breed.
Clownfish is you put one of those little clay pots in the tank,
and that will give them a place to lay those eggs and to make a nest to
watch. And maybe if you're lucky, if you're using some of the right foods,
you might have some baby clownfish in your tank. Okay.
In addition to changing up their Aqua scape and changing the types of food and
flow that you might have in the tank, you can also change the lighting. Now,
this is something that I would urge you to do with caution.
And only if you have a lid on your tank,
a lot of times damsels and clowns are relatively jumpy fish,
so they can get spooked. If you know, the light turns on automatically.
So make sure you've got a lid on the tank, but you can,
if you have a programmable light,
have that light ramp up and ramp down throughout the day next,
you can add different tank mates for your fish.
Now here's a rule of thumb when it comes to clownfish, you have one clownfish,
totally fine. You can have a pair of clownfish, totally fine.
Three clownfish,
and no don't do it four or more if you want to have more than two, right?
And the reason for that is if you have three, you're going to have one of those.
That's going to become the dominant female of the group.
And you're going to have the second one that's going to try and pair off.
It's very likely that the third one member of that group is going to be beaten
up and picked on almost until the point of death. So you want to avoid having,
um, a little group of three, try to get at least four of those. Now,
one cool thing about clownfish is that if you have a whole harem of clownfish,
they're all going to be males, right?
And then you're gonna have one alpha female.
And she's a lot of times going to be a lot more larger,
brighter in colors and relatively aggressive in comparison to all those
other fish in the tank. Now, if something happens to her,
it's actually pretty cool.
So one of those males will change sex and become the lead female of the group
and the cycle will just continue itself.
So that's pretty exciting thing to watch happen in your clownfish tank.
All right, now, sometimes too, with those dams,
a lot of them are going to get along really, really well,
especially in community tanks and with larger groups of damsels,
but just be cautious,
go use Marine D post fish compatibility chart and see how well they will pair up
with all of the other fish that you want to put in your tank. And remember,
please do not buy or add anything to your tank without doing research first.
Thank you so much. I hope you have enjoyed this video.
[Inaudible].