Need help deciding on whether or not a fish is right for your tank? Post here and we'll help!

[Slocke]

Opinions on my stock list? Too much or aggression issues? This is a 4' 75 gallon with a 40 gallon sump. Lots of rock work and caves.
Current stock:
Yellow Tang (baby small currently)
3x Royal gramma

This might cause issues in the future. They may get territorial with eachother

Red/Green Mandarin pair
Midas blenny (currently the most aggressive fish in the tank, no attacks but a little territorial against the grammas)
Lawnmower blenny
Maybe a dozen Cerith snails (God knows since they are breeding now)
1 fighting conch
2 strawberry conchs
2 Mexican turbos

Would like To get and add:
20 Trocus snails
One spot Fox face
Tommy tang

Two tangs in a small tank (for tangs) may be a risk and will certainly be your worst point of aggression.

Aphasia eating file fish
Blue Tuxedo urchin

Small copper band (if I can get one that's already eating known foods)

You seem to know how difficult these are to get eating and they are a big fish that may struggle to compete with the tangs too.

Yellow watchman and shrimp? Would it get along with the gobie and blenny? Would something eat the shrimp?

You should be good. I see no issues anywhere.

Least aggressive clownfish? I'm worried a clownfish would become the most aggressive fish in the tank. Would like a pair... but I know that will make them even more aggressive... what species is the least aggressive?

Ocellaris aren't very aggressive. Probably about par with a midas blenny IME

Ruby Mandarin pair (down the road) once the greens are super fat and happy confirming there's excess food in the tank for them.

Fire fish Exquisite and Helfrichi (low priority)

Just get one. They don't get along.

Very hesitant maybe:
Small wrasse for pest control? Something peaceful and small to minimize impact on pod population?

Why are you hesitant? Wrasse are some of the best community fish.
You don't want a small one as they'll eat the pods. Get a halichoeres. Singly they are very peaceful and will eat the small pests but not pods. I suggest H chrysus, H iridis, H marginatus.
I also suggest flasher and/or fairy wrasse. They don't eat pods or pests but will give you color and movement.

There are no corals in the tank currently. But I plan to add a bunch once I have all the fish I want in it. Probably just going to place a large order to tidal gardens to fully stock the coral in one go.

So... too many fish? The Filtration is currently a filter roller and large refugium with the plans and ability to add a protein skimmer soon. I want the skimmer more to use co2 reactor on to increase ph, but can run it to remove organics obviously.

With a refugium you should have a high pH already.
Fish stock is up to you. Some can maintain a healthy, peaceful tank with stable nutrients with a heavily stocked tank, others can't. Along with good filtration you need a lot of rock to give fish places to hide and to split the tank so fish can have their spaces in the tank.

I guess I'm most hesitant about the 2nd tang and the clowns. The tang I have is small currently and I was figuring I'd use an acclimation box to introduce a new one.

Acclimation boxes are always good. I personally would skip on the second tang. Maybe consider a dwarf angel instead but of course they are 50/50 with corals.

 

[BurtG]

This might cause issues in the future. They may get territorial with eachother

Two tangs in a small tank (for tangs) may be a risk and will certainly be your worst point of aggression.

You seem to know how difficult these are to get eating and they are a big fish that may struggle to compete with the tangs too.

You should be good. I see no issues anywhere.

Ocellaris aren't very aggressive. Probably about par with a midas blenny IME

Just get one. They don't get along.

Why are you hesitant? Wrasse are some of the best community fish.
You don't want a small one as they'll eat the pods. Get a halichoeres. Singly they are very peaceful and will eat the small pests but not pods. I suggest H chrysus, H iridis, H marginatus.
I also suggest flasher and/or fairy wrasse. They don't eat pods or pests but will give you color and movement.

With a refugium you should have a high pH already.
Fish stock is up to you. Some can maintain a healthy, peaceful tank with stable nutrients with a heavily stocked tank, others can't. Along with good filtration you need a lot of rock to give fish places to hide and to split the tank so fish can have their spaces in the tank.

Acclimation boxes are always good. I personally would skip on the second tang. Maybe consider a dwarf angel instead but of course they are 50/50 with corals.

Yeah I knew the gramma may show some aggression with each other when I got them. But I wanted to try and get a breeding pair of them and read that I could probably get away with 3 of them in the tank if I give plenty of hiding spots for territory. So I added a bunch of ruble for then and so far they seem to be ok. There has been some back and forth between 2 of them for dominance. But no hits or damage to be seen. I just see them occasionally threatening each other with flared gills which has actually been entertaining. Usually they leave each other alone and have their own caves. When I feed they all come out and don't have any issues with each other. Once I get a pair I will probably rehome the odd one out if it looks to be getting bullied.

So you think the 2 tangs would likely have an issue? I was hoping that starting with a baby yellow and adding a Tommy (one of the lesser aggressive tangs) would have a higher chance of success. But idk enough to know if I'm really rolling the dice on that.. I won't add it if the risk is high since I really don't want to lose another tang after the loses ive had with qt.. It's funny... the mandarins are what motivated me to setup this tank. But im finding myself watching and entertained by the "just clean up crew" yellow tang more lol.

I didn't even think about the butterfly competing with the tang. Would they be aggressive towards each other or do you just mean for food?

Thanks for the suggestion on the wrasse, that helps give me a starting point of which ones to research! I've been hesitant out of the fear of getting one that would destroy the pod population ive been building for the mandarins. Plus have seen the horror stories from the 6 lines. Plus there's just soooo many different ones Idk where to even start on researching them.

Yeah doing the refugium was part of my plan for getting a higher ph since I've always struggled to keep it up on my tanks. But it's only bumped me up one or 2 points. It's just holding around 7.9-8.0 when the fuge is running. Down as low as 7.6 when all the lights are off. I plan to run kalk once the corals are in. But would like to have the ph a little more controllable and stable well above 7.6 before I start adding corals. So I was thinking the co2 scrubber would probably be the easiest tunable solution. I'm waiting a little bit though because the fuge has only been running for a couple months and hasn't had a bunch of growth. So im waiting to see if the ph bump picks up once it's running at full tilt. I almost fried the chato putting too much light on it at first so I turned the intensity down and have been slowly ramping it up once a week watching for bleaching and watching the small ph swings with it. The tanks been up for 8 months, but I only started the fuge recently.

 

[Slocke]

Yeah I knew the gramma may show some aggression with each other when I got them. But I wanted to try and get a breeding pair of them and read that I could probably get away with 3 of them in the tank if I give plenty of hiding spots for territory. So I added a bunch of ruble for then and so far they seem to be ok. There has been some back and forth between 2 of them for dominance. But no hits or damage to be seen. I just see them occasionally threatening each other with flared gills which has actually been entertaining. Usually they leave each other alone and have their own caves. When I feed they all come out and don't have any issues with each other. Once I get a pair I will probably rehome the odd one out if it looks to be getting bullied.

So you think the 2 tangs would likely have an issue? I was hoping that starting with a baby yellow and adding a Tommy (one of the lesser aggressive tangs) would have a higher chance of success. But idk enough to know if I'm really rolling the dice on that.. I won't add it if the risk is high since I really don't want to lose another tang after the loses ive had with qt.. It's funny... the mandarins are what motivated me to setup this tank. But im finding myself watching and entertained by the "just clean up crew" yellow tang more lol.

I'm not saying it won't work but if you are worried about aggression this is the most likely vector. Just get the tomini last.

I didn't even think about the butterfly competing with the tang. Would they be aggressive towards each other or do you just mean for food?

Possibly both but I know plenty of people have done it. My butterfly is one of my boldest fish but they just have a reputation for being finicky. It may also eat corals btw.

Thanks for the suggestion on the wrasse, that helps give me a starting point of which ones to research! I've been hesitant out of the fear of getting one that would destroy the pod population ive been building for the mandarins. Plus have seen the horror stories from the 6 lines. Plus there's just soooo many different ones Idk where to even start on researching them.

6 lines are monsters. The fairies, flashers, halichoeres, possums, leopards, and tamarin are usually peaceful though the last three are copepod eaters and the last two are very sensitive.

Yeah doing the refugium was part of my plan for getting a higher ph since I've always struggled to keep it up on my tanks. But it's only bumped me up one or 2 points. It's just holding around 7.9-8.0 when the fuge is running. Down as low as 7.6 when all the lights are off. I plan to run kalk once the corals are in. But would like to have the ph a little more controllable and stable well above 7.6 before I start adding corals. So I was thinking the co2 scrubber would probably be the easiest tunable solution. I'm waiting a little bit though because the fuge has only been running for a couple months and hasn't had a bunch of growth. So im waiting to see if the ph bump picks up once it's running at full tilt. I almost fried the chato putting too much light on it at first so I turned the intensity down and have been slowly ramping it up once a week watching for bleaching and watching the small ph swings with it. The tanks been up for 8 months, but I only started the fuge recently.

New tanks often have a low pH. If you can run the light 24/7 that might help. I'm not sure but the cheeto may respire when the lights are off. An increased light schedule will obviously increase the amount of photosynthesis.

 

[BurtG]

I'm not saying it won't work but if you are worried about aggression this is the most likely vector. Just get the tomini last.

Possibly both but I know plenty of people have done it. My butterfly is one of my boldest fish but they just have a reputation for being finicky. It may also eat corals btw.

6 lines are monsters. The fairies, flashers, halichoeres, possums, leopards, and tamarin are usually peaceful though the last three are copepod eaters and the last two are very sensitive.

New tanks often have a low pH. If you can run the light 24/7 that might help. I'm not sure but the cheeto may respire when the lights are off. An increased light schedule will obviously increase the amount of photosynthesis.

So I'm going through the wrasse you suggested and I'm interested in the halichoeres marginatus with everything I've found to read on it. The only concern I have Is that it's one that buries itself in the sand. I have a course crushed coral sized sand in my tank. Should I be worried that it would injure itself when it burrows?

 

[SnazzyUrchin792]

I have a 20 long. In it I have:
-a pair of whitetail damsels
-a YWG/Tiger pistol pair
Is my tank at capacity?

 

[Slocke]

So I'm going through the wrasse you suggested and I'm interested in the halichoeres marginatus with everything I've found to read on it. The only concern I have Is that it's one that buries itself in the sand. I have a course crushed coral sized sand in my tank. Should I be worried that it would injure itself when it burrows?

Good question. @i cant think ?

See what he says but you can always add a bit of sand in the back somewhere. I know some people even put a tray in the back of the tank.

 

[Slocke]

I have a 20 long. In it I have:
-a pair of whitetail damsels
-a YWG/Tiger pistol pair
Is my tank at capacity?

Damsels are very territorial so adding anything else will be difficult

 

[SnazzyUrchin792]

Damsels are very territorial so adding anything else will be difficult

The damsels are fairly calm. They only bullied the goby for 30 minutes after adding it. And I didn’t even know about acclimation boxes yet.

 

[Slocke]

The damsels are fairly calm. They only bullied the goby for 30 minutes after adding it. And I didn’t even know about acclimation boxes yet.

Well I’d still suggest something tough: clownfish, royal gramma, maybe a fanged blenny. Maybe even a dottyback

 

[i cant think]

So I'm going through the wrasse you suggested and I'm interested in the halichoeres marginatus with everything I've found to read on it. The only concern I have Is that it's one that buries itself in the sand. I have a course crushed coral sized sand in my tank. Should I be worried that it would injure itself when it burrows?

Unfortunately yes, I’ve had a Silver Belly Wrasse (Halichoeres leucoxanthus) die due to my sand being too coarse with Crushed Coral only. I now have 2 Halichoeres (H. iridis and H. chloropterus) and my sand bed is very mixed in textures. I have coarse crushed coral (although this is minimal and is probably only 1/6th of my sand) then I have very fine sand among other slightly larger sand particles. If possible I personally recommend you take the tank apart then remove half of the sand and replace it with finer particles. This can make the house a mess but in the end it’s worth it, I did this method 3-4 times over my tank’s life span of 4 (nearly 5) years. Here’s what my sand bed looks like now (it ranges from 1-3”);

If you’re curious about my method of swapping sand I’ll be happy to tell you more

 

[BurtG]

Unfortunately yes, I’ve had a Silver Belly Wrasse (Halichoeres leucoxanthus) die due to my sand being too coarse with Crushed Coral only. I now have 2 Halichoeres (H. iridis and H. chloropterus) and my sand bed is very mixed in textures. I have coarse crushed coral (although this is minimal and is probably only 1/6th of my sand) then I have very fine sand among other slightly larger sand particles. If possible I personally recommend you take the tank apart then remove half of the sand and replace it with finer particles. This can make the house a mess but in the end it’s worth it, I did this method 3-4 times over my tank’s life span of 4 (nearly 5) years. Here’s what my sand bed looks like now (it ranges from 1-3”);

If you’re curious about my method of swapping sand I’ll be happy to tell you more

Thanks for the information! I was actually thinking about slowly swapping some of my sand out for a smaller particle size anyways just because the algae growth on the large stuff is bothering me. I have a fine sand in a smaller tank and with cuc that turns it over slowly, it usually stays nice and clean without me needing to do anything to it in there other than occasionally vacuuming out detritus.

I would assume for removal you suck it out with the hose during water changes. But how do you add new without destroying the place? I'm probably going to do it slowly overtime to keep from messing up the bacteria and bio system.

 

[i cant think]

Thanks for the information! I was actually thinking about slowly swapping some of my sand out for a smaller particle size anyways just because the algae growth on the large stuff is bothering me. I have a fine sand in a smaller tank and with cuc that turns it over slowly, it usually stays nice and clean without me needing to do anything to it in there other than occasionally vacuuming out detritus.

I would assume for removal you suck it out with the hose during water changes. But how do you add new without destroying the place? I'm probably going to do it slowly overtime to keep from messing up the bacteria and bio system.

I personally drained the tank down to no water and had buckets with the inhabitants. Then once this was done I took out 2.5-3/4 of the old sand and replaced with the new sand. I did this several times over 3 years and now have both a thick sandbed and a mixed sand particle size.

 

[Slocke]

I changed sand during water changes. Just scooped small areas out and added new sand. If you use a couple little take out tubs you can do it without making the water too cloudy.

 

[saltienewb]

RS300xl
Current inhabitants- 2 black and white oscellaris clowns, juvenile
3 small red legged and 3 small blue legged hermits

Looking for next steps stocking-wise

Wanted to add next: Royal Gramma and Yasha shrimp goby/pistol shrimp pair

Eventually want to add:
Cleaner Shrimp(maybe x2)
Assorted snails
Tuxedo urchin
Naoko Wrasse
Yellow Coris Wrasse or if not advisable,Midas Blenny
Flame Hawkfish

And lastly, possibly a coral beauty or flame angel

Doable? In that order?

 

[Slocke]

RS300xl
Current inhabitants- 2 black and white oscellaris clowns, juvenile
3 small red legged and 3 small blue legged hermits

Looking for next steps stocking-wise

Wanted to add next: Royal Gramma and Yasha shrimp goby/pistol shrimp pair

Eventually want to add:
Cleaner Shrimp(maybe x2)
Assorted snails
Tuxedo urchin
Naoko Wrasse
Yellow Coris Wrasse or if not advisable,Midas Blenny
Flame Hawkfish

And lastly, possibly a coral beauty or flame angel

Doable? In that order?

Cleaner shrimp are pretty easy and you can add as many as you like. Yellow wrasse is fine (probably more peaceful than a midas blenny) and overall its a good list. My experience with hawkfish is mixed. They can be peaceful but my current one is very aggressive.

With the angels they are 50/50 with coral and would be the last fish to add with the hawkfish if you go that route. Rest of the order does not matter. Yellow wrasse and the shrimp/goby need sand. Goby needs a good lid.

 

[mxzx8004]

Hi guys! I know that at times it can be difficult to know whether or not a fish is right for your tank. There are lots of things to consider when purchasing a new addition to your reef community: What size is the tank? What other fish are already in there? What inverts are in there? Is it a reef or fowlr? What about food availability? Is it a sensitive fish that needs special care requirements? Does it require particular water parameters? Is it aggressive? Is it a picky eater? Is it prone to disease?

These are all possible concerns that can come up in purchasing a new fish. REEF2REEF is here to help! Whether you're new to the hobby, or just unsure about a new addition, we'll be glad to help with advice and giving info about our new pet that will help it live many years in your tank. Of course, the tank is yours and so is the fish, so no one here will tell you what you can or CANNOT do with your own tank. We're just here to help by sharing our own knowledge and experience.

So let's get this thread going! If you're thinking about a new purchase and just not sure, post it up!

Good evening!

So our case is - we have 2 clownfish in a Reefer 350V3. So 4' tank. Wondering what our next add should be ? We do have some hair algae growing and we do have a nice sandbed that we want to keep prestine. So any colourful fish, that will be nice to our clowns would be a great help (and if they can help with maintenance, bonus).

Regards

 

[Slocke]

Good evening!

So our case is - we have 2 clownfish in a Reefer 350V3. So 4' tank. Wondering what our next add should be ? We do have some hair algae growing and we do have a nice sandbed that we want to keep prestine. So any colourful fish, that will be nice to our clowns would be a great help (and if they can help with maintenance, bonus).

Regards

Welcome! I'll try and go about this by addressing each of your needs.

For algae:

• Get a foxface, preferably a one-spot. That will be good for algae.
• You may also consider a bristletooth tang though they can be aggressive and would preferably be the last fish.
• However the best cure in my opinion is tuxedo urchins and mexican turbo snails.

For clean sand:

• Goby + pistol shrimp
• Sand sifting star
• Fighting conch's
• copepods
• Engineer goby

Peaceful fish:

• Gobies
• A basslet like a royal gramma
• Blenny
• Flasher wrasse
• Fairy wrasse (consult fairy wrasse chart)
• Halichoeres wrasse (radiant, yellow, dusky, etc)
• Small anthias
• Chromis

Come back to me with a list of fish you like and I can give you more specific advice!

 

[smarie]

I have an IM 25g Lagoon. I currently have 2 clownfish and a clean up crew. Could I add a pink streaked wrasse? Or is there another type of wrasse I should consider?

 

[Slocke]

I have an IM 25g Lagoon. I currently have 2 clownfish and a clean up crew. Could I add a pink streaked wrasse? Or is there another type of wrasse I should consider?

That will work or a possum wrasse

 

[smarie]

That will work or a possum wrasse

I really like possum wrasses, but a few people have told me they are expert only…how hard are they to take care of?