Stocking list critique wanted: 300g mixed reef w/ Tangs, Angels and more.

zalick

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My current tank is a 300g deep dimension acrylic clone: 72"L x 36"w x 27"h. It's an upgrade from previous systems and has been running for about 5 years. To say it's lightly stocked is an understatement.

It has the following fish:
B/W ocellaris - about 12yrs old. Its mate died a couple year ago. :(
magnificent foxface - 4 year old
Sleeper banded goby - 4 year old
Royal Gramma - 5 year old


I have an Reef octopus 5000 ext skimmer.

To make a long story short - I spent the first 2 years planning the fish I wanted then I had an algae outbreak a few years ago and went super aggressive ULN. Held off stocking. This presumably caused a terrible dino outbreak and killed all my SPS and snails. I didn't want to use any bottled magic to get rid of the dinos because I was afraid of losing my fish. I gave up finally and installed a 2nd UV and used DinoX. It's now back under control. So I'm ready to start my long delayed stocking...

Currently have LPS and softies. Will be adding SPS back and a few clams.

Rockwork has tons of hiding spots and lots of room for swimming.

Here is my potential list. I know it's kind of a heavy bioload at 33 fish. Could easily ditch the PJ cardinals.

I also understand that Angels are risky in a reef, so would love to know how truly risky. I'm ok with nips here and there but don't want anything that will decimate my corals. I've had potters angels in the past and they seemed fine. I've never owned full size angels, only dive with them. :)

I've also never owned Tangs and kinda swore them off due to being ich magnets. But I'm going to use Quarantined Fish so hopefully he kills any carrying ich. (And my tank has ich I'm sure already)

So what are you thoughts on the angels? tangs? Wrasses? And overall list for getting along? Any other gems you think I should consider?

I'd add the wrasses/misc first. Then the tangs (all at once). Then the angels. (All at once). Is that right?

Thanks!

Edit: strike through have been eliminated since original post. Italics have been added.


wrasses
carpenter flasher
mcCoskers flasher
ruby head fairy
red head solon fairy
lubbocks fairy
flame fairy
bluehead fairy
yellow flanked fairy
scott's fairy

labout's fairy
exquisite fairy
Pink Margin Fairy
Pintail Splendid Fairy
lineatus fairy



Tangs
yellow
PBT
purple
chevron
Blue-eye
Squaretail


Angels
flame
coral beauty
emperor
gold flake

Wantanabei
Bellus


Misc
pajama cardinal x 5 (easily cut from list)
Court Jester Goby
Yellow Watchman Goby
Hector's Goby
Purple fire fish
blue mandarin
randalls assessor
 
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zalick

zalick

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Get a variety of triggers in that reef tank!
I love Triggerfish. I had a Titan Trigger nearly kill me while diving in Indonesia! It was guarding it's babies....

Are there any that are generally reef safe? I think Picasso as the prettiest fish you see in tanks.
 

Zionas

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I’ve seen people who’ve kept the Picasso and the Rhinecanthus genus successfully in reef tanks. As for reef safe consensus seems to be the Xanthichthys genus (Blue Throat, Cross Hatch, Sargassum etc.) are the most Reef safe overall due to being plankton eaters and pelagic swimmers. Blue Throats are the easiest to find.

But yeah I agree the Rhinecanthus look better! I heard the Zebrasoma Tangs (Yellow and Purple) are hardy and relatively more resistant! Powder Brown and Blue not so much. Not sure about the Chevron. :) May I suggest switching to another Bristletooth Tang? The Chevron looks bland as an adult.

For Angels I’d probably look into some Genicanthus angels. The Swallowtail Angels. ;) You could have a pair or trio of them.
 
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zalick

zalick

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I’ve seen people who’ve kept the Picasso and the Rhinecanthus genus successfully in reef tanks. As for reef safe consensus seems to be the Xanthichthys genus (Blue Throat, Cross Hatch, Sargassum etc.) are the most Reef safe overall due to being plankton eaters and pelagic swimmers. Blue Throats are the easiest to find.

But yeah I agree the Rhinecanthus look better! I heard the Zebrasoma Tangs (Yellow and Purple) are hardy and relatively more resistant! Powder Brown and Blue not so much. Not sure about the Chevron. :) May I suggest switching to another Bristletooth Tang? The Chevron looks bland as an adult.

For Angels I’d probably look into some Genicanthus angels. The Swallowtail Angels. ;) You could have a pair or trio of them.
Thanks for the info. What bristletooth would you recommend? The Indian Gold Ring looks nice.

Swallow tails are beautiful. I didn't realize you could have multiple of the same. What do you recommend? I see the ones on LA and the wantanabei and bellus look nice!
 

Zionas

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Oh hey! :) The Indian Gold Ring, Yellow Eye Kole (Hawaiian endemic, not sure if you can still find any after the ban on collection there), Spotted (Blue Eye) Bristletooth and Tomini would all be smaller Bristletooths. The best looking but most rare would be the White Tail Bristletooth but the Indian Gold Ring looks nice too. :)

Both Watanabei and Bellus are be nice! The Spot Breast (Japanese Swallowtail) or if you can find them, Masked Swallowtail are also options. Lamarck’s as far as I know can get slightly larger and are harder to tell male and female apart from each other, the rest are sexually dimorphic. I’m not sure if you can mix females of the same or different species together with the hopes of one changing to a male as that’s actually something I want to try for myself. Just try not to have 2 males. :)
 
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zalick

zalick

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@Zionas would you recommend adding the tangs before Angels?

And from what I understand I should add all the Tangs at the same time and all the angels at the same time?
 

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Before I give any advice I knownthat if you are dead set on some of those fish you might want to get some ordered asap due to the recent Hawaii ban. Flame wrasse and yellow tang being some on that list that will either not be available or will be much more expensive soon.

As far as order in which they are added I'd probably put the more peaceful of each type in first and let them get settled. As an example on the angels I'd put the flame and coral beauty in first then move on to the big angels later. The bristletooth tang would go in before the others. Same on the wrasse. From my experience the Labouti and Scott's might want to be the last of those wrasses added.

The overall list seems fine to me would just recommend to do some research on those types of fish and decide on a particular order to introduce them. There will be many factors that can and will affect the final order but availability will probably the most difficult to get past.
 
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zalick

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Before I give any advice I knownthat if you are dead set on some of those fish you might want to get some ordered asap due to the recent Hawaii ban. Flame wrasse and yellow tang being some on that list that will either not be available or will be much more expensive soon.

As far as order in which they are added I'd probably put the more peaceful of each type in first and let them get settled. As an example on the angels I'd put the flame and coral beauty in first then move on to the big angels later. The bristletooth tang would go in before the others. Same on the wrasse. From my experience the Labouti and Scott's might want to be the last of those wrasses added.

The overall list seems fine to me would just recommend to do some research on those types of fish and decide on a particular order to introduce them. There will be many factors that can and will affect the final order but availability will probably the most difficult to get past.
Thanks. The order gives me the most stress!

I'm going to try for captive bred where possible, so the YT will ORA or Biota. I guess the Flame Fairy is off the list. I didn't realize it was endemic to Hawaii.

Do you think a month between each Group addition would be good for them to get settled in?
 

aherre07

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It just depends on how the fish are behaving. I would say a month should be good but it depends on how they handle the move and how well others tolerate and accept new additions.
 

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I have not had a great deal,of success keeping a large number of fairy wrasses. I got to about 6 in my 450 and then they progressively lost weight and stabilized at two ..... orange back and a labouti.

A few of them are going to be tough to find: flame wrasse, yellow and chevron. At least the yellow is CB. Final trickle of wild caught are crazy $$.
 
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zalick

zalick

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I have not had a great deal,of success keeping a large number of fairy wrasses. I got to about 6 in my 450 and then they progressively lost weight and stabilized at two ..... orange back and a labouti.

A few of them are going to be tough to find: flame wrasse, yellow and chevron. At least the yellow is CB. Final trickle of wild caught are crazy $$.
Do you still have around 40 total fish?

Do you think the fairy wrasses lost weight due to aggression preventing the others from eating? Maybe I should do more flashers.
 

ca1ore

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Do you still have around 40 total fish?

Do you think the fairy wrasses lost weight due to aggression preventing the others from eating? Maybe I should do more flashers.
In terms of that latter .... not really sure. It started with a lineatus and then a couple of Lubbock and then a ruby head. At this point I’m happy with the two that have endured.

40 .... perish the thought. Over 100, though half are damsels.
 

saltyhog

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The only fish I would absolutely recommend not getting is the Scott's fairy wrasse. They are extremely aggressive (numero uno in that regard IMO) and might not tolerate any other fairy wrasses even in a tank as big as yours. They are gorgeous but according to the experts they very often lose their bright coloration the longer they are kept in captivity.

The chevron tang is purely personal preference. I used to think they were bland as adults till seeing them in the wild. They aren't as flamboyant as the juvies but they are very pretty to me.

I would add all the tangs at once if possible due to the inclusion of the PBT. I would add the angels last just because nipping is not as big of a deal with colonies as it is with small frags.
 

MONTANTK

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Get a variety of triggers in that reef tank!
I second this! A pair of blue throats would be awesome. As for the angels, you should be okay as long as you’re keeping them well fed. I have had 3/4 mentioned. I had an issue with the Goldflake nipping SPS and the Emperor nipping polyps. They weren’t constantly attacking the corals but the frags were small enough for them to be unhappy. With those angels it really comes down to the specific fish. Highly recommend getting both as juveniles so you can experience the coloration changes
 

Zionas

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hey I’m honestly not sure. I’d say they are about the same level of aggression so maybe either way it’s fine but don’t take my word as gospel.

Sorry about the death of your male Clown. :( How Long did it live with you and the owner before you? You’ve had the female for 12 years but before that it was with another owner?
 
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zalick

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hey I’m honestly not sure. I’d say they are about the same level of aggression so maybe either way it’s fine but don’t take my word as gospel.

Sorry about the death of your male Clown. :( How Long did it live with you and the owner before you? You’ve had the female for 12 years but before that it was with another owner?
I got them from a LFS when they were small about 1-1.5". It was actually the female that died. She appeared perfectly healthy. I fed her in the morning, and came home from work and she was dead. No signs of trauma or disease. I think she maybe had a stroke. She's the larger one in my profile pic.
 
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zalick

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Sorry to hear that. I would have been shocked and extremely upset.
My wife an I were very sad. Losing fish is always sad, but even more so when they've been with you so long. The male seemed really sad for awhile.
 

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