Aussie local species tanks.

[tyler1503]

Are there any aussies who have only locally collected stuff in their tanks?
When the 4fts up and running I'm considering making a local fish only tank and need some inspiration!
I'm thinking some baby flathead and some baby sweep or luderick or something. And a bunch of cold water nems

 

[rob7777]

Yeah I got some Anemones red and green my black clowns love em ay

 

[rob7777]

As for fish if you go snorkeling around the rock pools you will find much nicer fish than flatheads there are nice little puffers and wrasses and even cardinals and damsels every where and if you scoop a net under rocks when you lift them you will find some nice gobbys and dragonettes

 

[rob7777]

I use to have a native tank a few years ago

 

[tyler1503]

As for fish if you go snorkeling around the rock pools you will find much nicer fish than flatheads there are nice little puffers and wrasses and even cardinals and damsels every where and if you scoop a net under rocks when you lift them you will find some nice gobbys and dragonettes

Toward the end of summer we get heaps of reef fish from qld. They come down in the current that nemos dad and dory ride to Sydney in finding nemo. Down merimbula way we get all sorts of wrasses, angels, bufferflys, damsels, clowns and heaps of cool stuff. The occasional Lionfish and angler too. Stuff you won't even find in shops.
In Sydney you'd get a lot more cool stuff. On my old tank thread on here I have a pic of some gobys that were caught locally. Awesome little guys. If I could have held my breathe just a few seconds longer I would have caught a keyhole angel in the weekend too.
A lot of the drab ugly fish down here look awesome in a tank, the public aquarium here is only locally caught fish. Absolutely amazing.
My fowlr used to be a native tank, but then I got a valentini and a snowflake eel lol.

 

[rob7777]

Yeah we get lots of reef fish I see em when I go spear fishing all the time question for ya on the eel thread

You said there is a fish safe eel how safe are they??

 

[tyler1503]

Zebra eels - gymnomuraena zebra - are supposedly fish safe. I've had a big one with medium sized fish and he was ok. Plenty of people keep them with smaller fish too. They generally eat inverts and cephalopods. As long as they're kept well fed they shouldn't go after tankmates. They're normally pretty docile and just hide in their den of some sort with their head out waiting for you to feed the tank.
Even though they're normally ok with fish I always told people who bought eels from the LFS I was at was to never trust an eel. They can go months or years without looking twice at a fish then all of a sudden fish can start disappearing. Once a moray has a grip on a fish, it's nearly impossible for the fish to get away.

 

[rob7777]

Is there any dwarf eels that u know of??

 

[tyler1503]

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/fish-database/64800-zebra-moray-gymnomuraena-zebra.html#post715842

I've never seen any dwarves here in aus. They're are some available in the us though. Snowflake eels are pretty small. They rarely get any bigger then about 2ft and in the wild don't eat fish. I have a snowflake at the moment in my 2ft tank and he's chased my valentini around a bit but hasn't actually tried to bite him that I know of.

 

[rob7777]

I'm worried about my clowns

 

[tyler1503]

How big are they?
Clowns can get pretty aggressive especially because you have an anemone with them so they should be fine. If anything they might be the bully's in the tank. A snowflake would be a good tankmate for them if you get it when it's still small.

 

[rob7777]

She is about 6-7cm and he is half that

 

[rob7777]

I've decided to build a 7ftx3ft monster tank so I wouldn't mind a morray I was in the Lfs the other day they had a nice little leopard shark too I just want want want you know how it is

 

[tyler1503]

I think they'll be ok if you can get a baby snowflake. You can find them pretty easily around 15-20cm occasionally smaller. If you do get one, don't feed it live food because it'll get used to hunting and is much more likely to have a go at your clowns. The anemone should protect them pretty well though.

 

[tyler1503]

Haha yea I know that feeling. I found a QLD grouper in an LFS that was about 20cm long. I was soooo tempted to get. If I had a big enough thank I would have.
7x3 is crazy big. You could go to the harbour and get a wobbegong for it lol

 

[rob7777]

Yeah or port Jackson ay I've always wanted a giant tank and I want to get into the fragging to make some extra cash cause I'm on disability cause I had a bad motorbike accident and can't work so maybe I can be Australia's version of wwc or unique corals those guys look like they make a fare bit cash over there I got plenty of time to look after the tank so I'm gonna go for if maybe have my own Lfs one day lol

 

[tyler1503]

Or both
That sucks heaps, hopefully you'll get back to normal soon aye.
Yea that'd be awesome, especially if you had some US connections to get some stuff not available here.

 

[rob7777]

I found a guy in Sydney who only exports to the states but he lets a few guys here buy stuff so I'm going next weekend to see what he's got

 

[rob7777]

The hardest thing is finding those one in a million pieces that no ones got ay there is heaps of the common colours but those hot pieces are really hard to come by as you know

 

[tyler1503]

Thats true, but you only need a few nice pieces to frag and a few more common ones for a decent back shed type set up. Until the nicer pieces become a bit more common anyway.
I'd travel to Sydney to buy from a good backyard frag guy.