Idea 120 Gallon Reef with only nano fish

jacrispy516 · Oct 12, 2022

I am setting up an old 120-gallon tank I have. Going with a 55-gallon sump/refugium focusing heavily on macroalgae/pod growth for all the pod eaters I want. I am thinking about doing all nano fish with the solon wrasse and flame angel as the centerpiece fish. How is my stocking list looking?

Purple Firefish
Bangaii Cardinalfish (x2)
Yellow Striped Cardinalfish (x2)
Neon Goby (x2)
Flaming Prawn Goby (x2)
Green Banded Goby (x3)
Green Clown Goby (x2)
Hi fin Red Banded Goby (x2)
Court Jester Goby
Two Spot Goby (x2)
Green Mandarin Dragonet
Pink Spotted Watchman Goby
Royal Gramma
McCosker’s Flasher Wrasse
Red Head Solon Fairy Wrasse
Pink Margin Fairy Wrasse
Flame Fairy Wrasse
Tail Spot Blenny
Midas Blenny
Blue Green Reef Chromis
Ocellaris Clownfish (x2)
Orchid Dottyback
Yellowtail Damselfish
Flame Angelfish

Also possibly considering a six-line wrasse as the very last fish added and maybe blue striped pipefish. I've heard the flagtails are fine in strong currents (correct me if I'm wrong)

davidcalgary29 · Oct 13, 2022

Why do you consider these fish to be "nano" species? Flame angels, clowns, and fairy wrasses aren't exactly petite.

I'd cut your fish list in half -- that's a lot of fish, even for a 120g, because many of them will be competing for the same habitat. If you want to increase the bioload (slowly!), then think about species that live in the water column, such as the (very small) pygmy whitespotted filefish.

I love orchid dottybacks, but I'd get a pair. My singletons are fine, but they always seem to be more vibrant when they're paired.

jacrispy516 · Oct 13, 2022

davidcalgary29 said:
Why do you consider these fish to be "nano" species? Flame angels, clowns, and fairy wrasses aren't exactly petite.

I'd cut your fish list in half -- that's a lot of fish, even for a 120g, because many of them will be competing for the same habitat. If you want to increase the bioload (slowly!), then think about species that live in the water column, such as the (very small) pygmy whitespotted filefish.

I love orchid dottybacks, but I'd get a pair. My singletons are fine, but they always seem to be more vibrant when they're paired.

Yea I should've reworded it to mostly nano fish. I think I'm going to ditch the flame angel actually. I'll have to cut down the list probably by instead of doing a lot of pairs just single specimens. Never heard of white-spotted filefish are they reef-safe?

davidcalgary29 · Oct 13, 2022

No filefish is entirely reef safe. That being said, this species has a largely subtropical range and show little interest in corals. I have one which coexists with a tiny radial filefish in an Evo reef. It spends its time buzzing around the top of the water column.