have been recently considering a helfrick based tank. not a true biotope due to the fact that I would still want reef type lighting and coral, but still designed around keeping this fish and hopefully breading at some point. my first question is how much space would each fish require to mantain a peacefull comunity. Im asuming that its the amount of sand or tank floor each controls as there taratory and thatthe water coluoms hight is of little importance. this will unfortunitly be the issiue that deturmines if I can do the tank or not. since the wife is not ready to do a large tank. but if it were posable in a smaller tank or latter in a larger tank. what other question should I be asking. has anyone done a dartfish comunity tank befor.

thanks in advance, john-paul.

assuming their behavior to be similar to that of the regular firefish and the purple firefish, I would say good luck keeping more than 2.

I tried 5 in a 40B unwittingly and found out the hard way that they have a very aggressive pecking order. I ended up with 1 at the end of a month. Try to get a pair if you can locate a true pair. Im unaware if theyre hermaphroditic so Im not sure if you can get two random ones, nor do I know how to sex them =(

+1 to supernip. IIRC, one article said they are either as aggressive or more aggressive than the purple firefish. However dartfish (except firefish) from the genus Ptereleotris are great choices for a group tank.

The last time I looked into this I remember that you would be needing a tank that can give each fish 1 cubic foot+ of space per Fenner at WWM. And sexing them is almost impossible by the layperson. A helpful link on breeding them:

http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/viewtop...=174&t=2505

thanks guys your input really helps.
Urchinhead that thread rocks.

been thinking about this because a friend gave me a 75. was hoping that it would be large enough to atempt this but may need to think larger now. will soon be upgrading from a 10 to a 29 but this would still only be large enough for one helfrick. especailly after nips input, wow.