I have a 29 gal tank that has been set up for 3 years. I have slowly over the past year lost some fish and have wanted to wait for a while and make sure my water is where it needs to be before restocking with new fish.
I currently have
1 Maroon Clown
1 Skunk Cleaner Shrimp
30lbs of live rock
number blue and scarlet legged hermits
a few turbo and margarita snails
a few detirius snails

What i would like to do is add some color and more movement to my tank. I was thinking a small group of 3 damsels, but not sure if they would get along with the Maroon clown. I plan on adding a BTA when I add my new lights for him. Who knows this might make him more aggresive. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

You have an established Maroon Clown..A Spunky fish to say the least.IMO,any new addition is gonna have to be ready to hold it's own.
Let me give it some thought & I'll reply in a bit.

How big is the Clown?

Larry has a great point about the maroon clown. The larger the clown gets the more ,......putting it nicely, the more evil it gets. lol I ended up trading my maroon off because it went after everything including my hand lol

If you do decide to add something to tank with the maroon make sure you have hole in your rock work for the new inhabitant to hide for awhile.

Guppies FTW!


Oh wait, wrong type of forum :p


I'd say get another maroon clown and hope for babies, if you would have a place t keep babies that is. although they do have good points, it would be tough adding hardly anything with a big maroon, i heard amroons are one of the more aggressive types also. but another maroon may do better with a maroon then a goby IMO. of course i could be compeltely wrong on this. note, i'm still kind of a newbie to most saltwater. so i don't have much experience with that, just from what 've read.

I wouldn't try the baby thing. Maroons are very hard to breed and then keep alive and 9 times out of 10 if you introduce a new maroon with a maroon that has his territory marked the new maroon will be killed. Chances are very high anyways.

why not try some type of LPS coral ?? they are colorful and move quite a bit. as everyone else said, it is gonna be next to impossible to add a fish unless you get rid of the maroon. LPS come in all colors and sizes, so you could start with a frag of say ... pink tipped frogspawn, and just keep growing that or add hammers or torches. they will all give great movement in a small tank.

Here's what I would do,contingent on the fact that this is a well established tank,full of live rock,and the Maroon isn't over 2" already:

All fish need to be simultaneously introduced.

Have your new inhabitants waiting in bags from the LFS.I'd suggest 2 or 3 of the following fish:Small Niger Trigger,Flame Hawkfish,Bi Color Blenny,Spotted Watchman Goby.While you're there,ask for an extra bag & rubberband.

The key is to have a game plan,because the clown has to come out for this to work.
Set up 2 clean buckets. One for the clown & one for some of the live rock that needs to come out if necessary.
One more bucket full of freshly made salt water to replace what comes out in the process.
Siphon out a couple gallons of tank water,catch the clown,place him in this bucket.
Rearrange the rockwork in the tank.
Bag the clown and acclimate all the fish,float method.
This may or may not be what you had in mind,I'd really like to see a pic of the tank sometime!! :)

good plan Larry, but the Maroon is still going to get more and more aggressive as it grows. the Niger will get WAY to big for a 29 gallon tank, and the others will likely still be picked on or bullied as the clown grows.

Ok Bobby....what'cha say to omitting the Niger,and sticking with the others?
If it were anything other than a Maroon(oops..Tomatos are a kick in the pants too)
Ok...I think I'm answering my own question here.
Best case scenario..The potential for some major scrapping is high.
A 55 would be a different story.
But I'd bet a clown would leave a big,tough sand sifting goby alone,if Introduced together.
BTW...That 125 in your pic is Kikkin !!!!!

thanks Larry.

i agree that in a bigger tank the circumstance's would be different.

The Maroon clown is about 3 inches. He had his little spot, but for the most part got along ok with the pair of Bar Gobies and a small yellow tang that I had for a long time. I know that this is kinda an in between size of tank, but it is what I have to work with for now. Thanks for the info. I will just leave it the way it is for a while. If I do add anything I will add some more rock for hiding places and take him out and rearrange the rock when adding new tankmates. Thanks for the help though.

I don't see why adding 2 or 3 damsels wouldn't work. I mean there are a variety of colors to chose from and they are pretty active fish. From the two I have I would think that they could hold their own against the maroon.

What does everyone else think?

with DAMNsels and the maroon, you will eventually have at least a few dead fish. DAMNsels get extremely aggressive when older to (especially the black and white ones), but the other colors get aggressive too.

what part of KY are you from Megan ??

I understand damsels can become very aggressive........but honestly I still don't see why it wouldn't work. The maroon already has its "spot," which I'm sure it rarely leaves from, so I couldn't really see it leaving its spot to go out and terrorize the damsels. Also, since the damsels are obviously going to be added to the tank after the maroon already has his territory staked out then I just couldn't see them terrorizing the maroon.

I mean I'm no expert by all means.....and I've never had first had experience with maroons and damsels together but just from the little I know about fish I still don't understand why that wouldn't work.

Feel free to let me know what you all think......i'm just throwing my 2 cents in.

By the way Bobby i'm from meade co......a few minutes from ft. knox.

sounds like you shop at e-town pets for you saltwater needs. i sometimes supply frags to them. if you dont already shop there, you should check them out. it is a small store, but they usually have some pretty nice stuff.

just knowing how DAMNsels are, and adding them to a an established Maroon clown tank, is taking a pretty big chance of having alot of fighting later on down the road. just my opinion, but there WILL be major losses eventually. whether it is the clown or the DAMNsels ... some WILL be killed in the fighting. if it was a percula or pink skunk clown ... we would be talking about a completely different situation.

How about a six line and a dwarf angel. The dwarf angel should be big enogh that the maroon clown won't bother. The six line will be able to hide in the interim and is too fast for the maroon to catch. It is risky but it can and has been done. I agree that the only way to do this is to take the clown out of the tank and aquascape much differnetly than before making it appear that the clown is in a different home itself. Tangs are way to big for a tank of this size. A dwarf angel(Coral Beauty, Elibi, or large pygmy) would be alright. Careful of coral picking though, not sure what you have in your tank.

Good luck Kysteer!