Will 3 male ruby dragonets get along if they are the only 3 fish in my 30g frag tank?

[Sean Donohue]

I have a 30 gallon frag tank, I have a healthy supply of brine shrimp and copepods , I breed them in my garage. I've successfully kept a Mandarin dragonet alive for two years now, first in my 50 gallon tank, and now it's doing well in my upgraded 100 gallon. Keeping pods has never been a problem for me. All that aside, if they are well-fed, is there going to be any aggression between 3 males if there are no females present? I ordered three young Ruby dragonets from a website, I won't say who, but when I requested a male and two females, I was told that it's not possible to identify their sex when they're this young. Upon arrival, I could immediately see darkish green blotches on the ends of their fins, and huge dorsal fins, indicating that they are all male. I could end up putting one in each of my 3 tanks, but I'm curious if anyone has had any experience keeping only males?

 

[xxkenny90xx]

I've only ever kept males with females so no first hand knowledge here but it sounds like you already know there will most likely be aggression

 

[ReeferWarrant]

Curious how this works out, my assumption is there will be territory issues.

 

[ashiWaza]

The only information I ever remember reading was the generic info LivAquaria posts, it was something along the lines of "if multiple males are kept together, it should be in an established system of 55 gallons or larger"

 

[PicassoClown04]

Will end very badly, witnessed this at my LFS (they had about 4 males in a 40 gallon, there were a couple maybe 2-3 females as well) and within a week of the shipment all the males were dead/in very bad condition because of the incessant fighting. Please don’t put them all in the same tank!! I would hate to see this happen to more ruby reds.

 

[Crustaceon]

Dragonets are hyper territorial. Unless it’s a mated pair, don’t do it!

 

[PicassoClown04]

If I were you, I’d put them all in separate tanks or pick a favorite male and sell the other two. It’s a bad idea to keep all of them in the same tank. A male and two females is fine, as are all females, a pair, or a male alone. I’ve had ruby red males pair with mandarin females (green, blue, red, and target) and have kept a ruby red male with a blue mandarin/target male in a 50 gallon with little issue. Trick is to make sure the males look very different from each other.

 

[ReefBeta]

I only tried two male blue mandrin in a standard 55 gallon. It ends very poorly. It can't even last for a week.

 

[Sean Donohue]

Thanks for the great feedback. I'm going to split them up. Any recommendations on where I can order a female from reliably?

 

[TriggerFinger]

There’s always ruby reds listed on divers den. If you’re not already, you can sign up for their emails.

 

[Cjeippert]

I ordered 2 ruby reds hoping one would be a female and the other a male. I have a 140 gallon DT and ended up with 2 males. They fought every day all day, so I donated the pale small weaker one to my lfs to rehome. I would move them to complete opposite ends of the tank, but they ended right back at the same battle ground. Btw, some of these ruby reds are fast small good at hiding and hard to catch

 

[Paul B]

No, they will not get along.