Blue-Green Chromis

Care at a glance

Overview

A peaceful, hardy schooling fish that behaves much like the green chromis and is easy to confuse with it in stores. Keep it in a group of six or more so aggression stays diffused across the shoal, since small groups tend to develop a pecking order that thins the group over time. It ignores corals and inverts and eats frozen and prepared foods eagerly, making it a solid community reef fish.

In the wild

Lives in shoals over branching corals in lagoons and on protected reef slopes across the Indo-Pacific, in the same habitats as the very similar green chromis. Groups hover above the coral picking plankton from the current and dive into the branches for cover when threatened.

Good to know

Chromis atripectoralis is nearly identical to Chromis viridis but grows a little larger and carries a small dark blotch at the base of the pectoral fin, which gives it the name black-axil chromis. Like its relative it is a plankton-feeding damselfish whose males guard demersal eggs, and its larvae drift in open water.

Did you know

The easiest way to tell it apart from the near-identical green chromis is the small black spot tucked into the armpit where the pectoral fin meets the body.

Related species

• 

  Blue Chromis

  Chromis cyanea

  5.1 in (13 cm)53 gal (200 L)73–81°F (23–27°C)

• 

  Green Chromis

  Chromis viridis

  3.1 in (8 cm)30 gal (115 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  Cinnamon Clownfish

  Amphiprion melanopus

  4.7 in (12 cm)30 gal (115 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  Golden Damselfish

  Amblyglyphidodon aureus

  4.7 in (12 cm)53 gal (200 L)75–81°F (24–27°C)

• 

  Saddleback Clownfish

  Amphiprion polymnus

  5.1 in (13 cm)40 gal (150 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)

• 

  Skunk Clownfish

  Amphiprion akallopisos

  4.3 in (11 cm)26 gal (100 L)75–82°F (24–28°C)