Any Low Aggression Dottyback’s?

AmaleeC · May 10, 2020

So I’ve heard nothing but horror stories on neon dottbacks and I’m curious about wether or not anyone has actually had one they enjoyed that wasn’t aggressive?

At the moment, mine is doing really well. But I’ve got some pretty aggressive fish as it is, minus my firefish.

Mikedawg · May 10, 2020

Orchids are not very aggressive and make good community fish in my experience. And yes, neons are some of the more aggressive species.

Zionas · May 10, 2020

The lowest, as far as I know, is the Orchid / Fridmani Dottyback.

Manda0597 · May 10, 2020

So we have a Royal Dottyback in a community tank of peaceful fish and it hasnt shown any aggression at all.

homer1475 · May 10, 2020

Ora made a hybrid a while back, not sure if it's still available? It was a crossbreed, that was bred to specifically curb the aggression dottyback's usually have.

Electric indigo dottyback. Had one a while back(before it went carpet surfing), and it was the shyest dottyback I have ever seen. Was never aggressive, and the biggest scary cat in my tank.

mort · May 10, 2020

Neons have a bad reputation but they aren't actually that aggressive for a dottyback. I'm not suggesting they are peaceful but there are some very very nasty dottybacks that we luckily don't see.
I've bred dottybacks including the neon and the best ones I've found in rough order of least aggressive to more aggressive is fridmani, sankeyi (those two also hybridise into the indigo), springers, sunrise and then a bit of a leap in aggression to neon.
If you have enough space and sensible tankmates thy aren't that limiting a fish in the same way that the better damsels aren't.

DeniseAndy · May 10, 2020

I had indigo for years, three of them. They were never aggressive to each other or others. Perfect reef fish. They just kept to their cave and came out to eat.
I had an electric indigo too. Had for many years and it was always a perfect citizen. Scared of almost everything, but never bothered anyone or anything in the tank.
I currently have a sunrise dottyback and have had no issues. She is not aggressive to anyone. Still newer in the tank though.

madweazl · May 10, 2020

Love the neon but mine was the spawn of Satan.

Bam327 · May 10, 2020

I had a neon years ago that used to bully a sally light foot crab 4x it’s size. Now that sally light foot was a cold hearted beast that had no conscience or morals, but that didn’t phase the dotty.
With my new tank, I will most likely be adding an orchid dotty back, but only after I have added all the peaceful fish I’m going to get. With my past experience, I don’t trust adding a dotty any sooner.

AmaleeC · May 11, 2020

Thanks for the input everyone! I’m loving all of the anecdotal stuff here, definitely interesting to hear how dottybacks have worked out for everyone!

Btw @mort VERY cool you breed these bad boys!

mort said:
I've bred dottybacks including the neon

&& I was awaiting a response just like this one lol @madweazl!

@homer1475, I‘m sure many other users here only wish they could say the same of their dottybacks! Haha

@Bam327, happy you’ll be adding one to your new tank!!

TheShrimpNibbler · May 12, 2020

My neon dottyback was a jerk. He didn’t bully fish. Instead, he just decided that he didn’t like firefish, so he killed it. Then he decided to eat all of the feet off of my urchin. This all happened within three days of me getting it. I’ve heard that some people have success with other dottybacks, but I won’t be trying it.

Wolf89 · May 12, 2020

My purple, not an orchid, was a model citizen and was best friends with my engineer goby. They slept literally on top of each other. I know they are supposedly super mean so I have been hesitating to get another. I don't know for sure what happened to mine. I think he was crushed during the reaquascaping of my tank, a month or 2 ago, havnt seen him since.

mort · May 12, 2020

AmaleeC said:
Btw @mort VERY cool you breed these bad boys!

It was a while ago and they are pretty simple, for a marine fish, to breed (arguably easier than clownfish). I got lucky with one species and so tried a few more. The neons were the trickiest because their pairing and mating can be rough with anything from severely split fins up to killing each other. The male would attack the female from underneath biting the belly. This is where I saw their potential aggression level but funnily enough they lived with a pair of bangaii cardinals without issue.