Blue Chromis

About

The blue chromis (Chromis cyaneus) is one of the more elegantly simple fish you can keep in a reef setup. A slender, powder-blue damselfish with a deeply forked tail that gives it a almost swallow-like silhouette in the water column. In the wild it ranges across the Western Atlantic from Bermuda and southern Florida through the Caribbean, the Bahamas, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Antilles, where it hovers in loose, active groups above deep outer reef slopes picking copepods and other small zooplankton out of the current. You'll often find them alongside creole wrasse in the wild, and when something spooks them the whole group vanishes into coral crevices almost instantly. That same instinct carries into the aquarium. Give them some rockwork to retreat to and they'll be much more confident and visible day-to-day. Unlike most damselfishes, blue chromis genuinely earn their peaceful reputation and mix well with other calm reef inhabitants. Breeding pairs have been observed in captivity, with males taking on egg-guarding duties, though raising the larvae is a serious challenge. Kept in a small group, they spend most of their time mid-water and give a tank a natural, lively feel that's hard to replicate with bottom-dwelling species.