Anyone have one large centerpiece fish, and a bunch of smaller fish?

[kangadrew]

Kind of a mouthful of a title, lol.
But does anybody have a larger tank (4'+) with one larger fish in it (tang, med-large angel, butterfly, etc), and a bunch of smaller fish?
I am finding myself more and more interested in the smaller stuff, and less and less interested in larger fish.
For those of you that do - what size tank, how many smaller fish, and do you like your activity level?

For example - in a 6' 180 gallon, would it be too "empty" if you were to keep around 15-20 small wrasses, with a single tang around 8-9" long?

Take care,
Drew

 

[Shilpan Patel]

I have that currently and I like it! I have a 105 gallon with soft corals.
I have one sailfin tang as my centerpiece. Then 5 other supporting fish (chromis clownfish goby and dragonet). Planning on getting some firefish soon.

 

[norfolkgarden]

4', 75 gallons.

2.5" copperband butterfly
2" flame hawkfish
2.5" Lubbocks wrasse
Pygmy angelfish
Saphire damsel
5 royal gramma
1 neon gold cleaner goby

Will be adding a few more similarly small fish later.

Always been a tank stuffer.
Then a crash with the 'last' fish.

Finally backing off to a reasonable stocking level.
Only planning on adding 3 more fish maturing under 4".

 

[Eva Rose]

This is interesting! I am drawn to many of the smaller fish as well. Good thread topic. Would like to see pics of member's tanks that fall into this description.

 

[kangadrew]

This is interesting! I am drawn to many of the smaller fish as well. Good thread topic. Would like to see pics of member's tanks that fall into this description.

Thanks!
So many tanks out there that are nothing but tangs and some random smaller fish. Many of them look cool, but there are some awesome smaller fish that you can fill a tank with too, like wrasses. And the bioload of 15-20 wrasses should be lower than 3-4 tangs, meaning water quality will increase.

 

[mort]

I'd suggest that if your wanting just one larger species either go for a real show stopper or one that doesn't get to big. If you go bigger then it ruins the scale of the tank but that's less of a problem if it's a showy species. In the past I've setup tanks and used more delicate species like a copperband, long nose butterfly or powder brown, gold rim tangs. With less competition you get the best out of the fish.

 

[kangadrew]

I'd suggest that if your wanting just one larger species either go for a real show stopper or one that doesn't get to big. If you go bigger then it ruins the scale of the tank but that's less of a problem if it's a showy species. In the past I've setup tanks and used more delicate species like a copperband, long nose butterfly or powder brown, gold rim tangs. With less competition you get the best out of the fish.

I was thinking moorish idol.
Delicate AND a show stopper.

Drew