[dinor2]

I have a fish list, which I'll probably add 2-4 max more fish in the future but for now, anyone have experience with any of these fish on my list? I'd love to hear what you all know about them (rather than just what I get from the lfs and internet!). Thanks for your help!

2 false percula clown (have one already)
1 lawnmower blenny OR red lip blenny?
1 copperband butterfly?????
1 white tail pygmy angel OR 1 half black angel?
1 pygmy (cherub) angel
2 anthias (mated pair Lyretail or dispar)
1 sleeper blue dot goby
1 six line wrasse (he's going in last, but before the mandarin, or, will he beat up the mandarin?)
1 blue mandarin dragonet (this guy isn't getting in my dt until my dt is at least 2 years old!)

I also have an invert/coral list, and a clam is on that list. Do these angels pick at mantels?

[reefcouple]

well, imo, i wouldnt get the butterfly, tough to keep and will at some point likely pick at your coral, but i have heard some wont. but they are very fragile.

the 6 line will be a bully to the more docile fish

i went with a lubbocks wrasse, cool reef fish.

never had a pygmy, but have had a flame and a coral beauty, great fish!!!

gobys are awesome, all of them..

ditto on the blenyny's.. just make sure you have a decent pod population for the dragonette and the blenny and you will have them for a long time.

percs are nice, not as territorial as their maroon counterparts..

anthias are easy to keep, but can be "jumpers" if harassed (6-line)....

you will see your goby and blenny more often w/o your 6-line in the tank... 6-lines are nice and good for reefs, they like to eat brissel worms. but they can be little $hits...

i like the book "reef fishes" but there's a chart on drsfosterandsmith that i find very accurate. the chart will be on the prompt menu when you go to view a fish....

Good luck, good taste in fish (pun) lol

[dinor2]

Thanks for the info Randy. The six line was kind of iffy from the get go, he'll be taken off the list, would a fairy wrasse do well in a 55gal? I think they look nicer anyways...what do you think?

[reefcouple]

a lubbocks fairy would go great in your tank, we love ours, it stays small and is very peaceful and soooo colorful.

you can see our lubbocks behind the frogspawn if you look closely.. kinda pinkish and blue..

[dinor2]

Reefcouple, have you seen my photo gallery? Just curious... those are nice looking fish! And you have a mated pair in your dt? I'm hoping the 2 percs will be a mated pair... I'm also thinking of adding a purple or strawberry pseudochromis..... anyone have experience with those?...

Also, I only have two fish and not real familiar with how long it generally takes a dwarf angel to start eating well. The cherub pygmy angel I got is doing well, grazes all day but only eats a bite or two of food I put in. Sunday will be day 2, does it take a couple of days for them to acclimate enough to where they eat well? I understand that these fish in particular are almost always wild caught....

[Packer Lakerfan4]

Remember copperbands are a difficult fish having aptasia is a plus with these fish im growing aptasia just to feed him they need a varied diet good luch

[reefcouple]

I hope you dont have any problems with a pygmy and a dwarf in your tank, the dwarf may bully it? but maybe not....

No i dont have any mated pairs, tried that once and ended up with two males lol

the pseudo's are supposed to be pretty peacful, i have a friend with one and its pretty hardy and quite active, but i couldnt say by experience.

Something my flame really likes is seaweed, bought it at petco or petsmart (its everywhere), it's dried and in pouches. I have a tank clip with a suction cup and it nibbles on that throughout the day...

Nice tank Dana!!!!! I like the smaller peacful fish, just picked up another grama today.

Do you have a sand bed? If so, check into a sand sifting goby, very good for the tank and fun to watch, just dont get a jawfish, they like to spit the sand all over your coral lol, but alot of people like them, i have a diamond goby, pretty cool fish, it uses a shell as a door to his hideout in the sand.

[dinor2]

Well, unfortunately, I have enough aptasia in my dt to feed a butterfly fish. Also, the lfs I go to has a great distributor they get their fish from and they have been feeding theirs mysis shrimp with garlic and have been feeding well on that too.

As for the cherub angel, he'll probably be the only angel in the tank. To be safe, I'll have one angel, one butterfly, one of what's on my list, except for the clowns. Hoping that will also help make for a more peaceful tank.

THanks reefcouple for the compliment, trying realy hard to start out the right way, taking it very slow. Next thing I'm doing is adding some cheato to my overflow where it's turned into a refugium full of pods.

So the next fish I get should be a goby, huh? I saw a diamond goby at the lfs, seem pretty cool. Do they make huge mounds of sand or do they sift thru it all pretty evenly? I really do like the blue dot goby though, blue's my favorite color.

I do have the seaweed sheets as well, I put one in today for a few hours and will try again tomorrow as well. He's not looking underfed too much but starting to show signs of not eating quite enough so keeping an eye on him. Maybe I just need to do extremely small amounts of food multiple times a day since he only eats a bite or two. Scheduled to do the weekly water change tomorrow too so my nitrates shouldn't spike. I'll also get a pic of him and post it in the gallery.

[reefcouple]

yeah my diamond goby is just wild, and messy lol. but im ok with it... any sand sifting goby would be a great great addition to your tank and will help keep the sand bed looking good...

I think you have a good selection of fish!!!

I have asked around on this one (pods and placement).... If you have the room in your tank and alot of rock work fish cant get to, you can use a turkey baster when the lights are out and squirt the pods into the rock work. So i did it and it seems to have worked?? A refugium is supposed to be the way to go but that takes time to develope as well???

Anyhow, its fun learning, and everyone has different ideas, and sometimes very opossing, so i like to just take all the advise and just decide for myself....

Yeah post some new pics...

[dinor2]

Well, it's been difficult to find the blue dot goby lately, my birthday's not till May so I could find one then. But, in the mean time, here's one of the two new additions to my dt. No, it's not from the indo pacific but, it'll be interesting to see how the one from the carribean does in an indopacific setting....

He's a great little fish, gets along great with our Nemo, also, not pictured is a brittle sea star which is about 8 or 9 inches in circumferance, pretty nice size. So far, he likes frozen krill and garlic pellets.





Thanks for looking!

[stacef]

I like him a lot!! That's wonderful that he is doing good, happy to hear!

I think it's kind of neat in your picture where you can see the "tracks" from where the snails have cleaned, kind of cool designs they make, until we wipe them away! haha. Just thought I would add that.

[aquasalt]

Love the blue around his eye. He almost looks animated.

[dinor2]

Originally Posted by stacef

I like him a lot!! That's wonderful that he is doing good, happy to hear!

I think it's kind of neat in your picture where you can see the "tracks" from where the snails have cleaned, kind of cool designs they make, until we wipe them away! haha. Just thought I would add that.

Thanks! I personally don't care to see the snail tracks so I scrape as much as I can but, I'm going give it another month or two to see if taking out 6 gallons instead of 5 every wk in water changes helps cut down on the algae growth. Nothing's getting taken over by the algae, yet, but I'm guessing that 6 gal in a 55gal is closer to a 10% water change than 5 gallons, I may even change up to 7 gallons but am going to add that cheato soon so that should help.
The only thing I do not know the levels in my water are silica and carbon dioxide, so hoping the new water changes will take care of that.

Aquasalt, that's one of the things that drew my attention to him, he looks like he's smiling all the time and that blue around his eyes just makes him look happy too. He was shy the first few days but, hardly hides anymore when you go to the tank. Hasn't picked on any corals so far.... (knock on wood) but in May I'll definitly be adding more and also a clam so we'll see what he does with those...

Speaking of which, I am not sure what to add next in May, I have time but, anyone have any suggestions to what to add next? Here's my list...

Fish
2 false percula clown (have one already)
1 copperband butterfly?????
1 white tail pygmy angel OR 1 half black angel?
1 pygmy (cherub) angel
2 anthias (mated pair Lyretail or dispar)
1 sleeper blue dot goby or diamond goby?
1 blue mandarin dragonet (this one’s very iffy, I’d hate to attempt such a delicate fish, any suggestions on another fish that’s eye popping?)

Inverts
7 nassarius snails
4 astrea snails
5 hermit crabs (zebra, blue, red)
3 peppermint shrimp
1 skunk cleaner shrimp
1 brittle sea star
1 Maxima clam
1 linckia sea star or red sea star (will there be conflict with my brittle sea star?)


Corals
Yellow polyps
Kenya
Starburst Polyp (P)
Sea mat (purple) (SA)
Toadstool mushroom leather coral (P)
Red or blue mushroom (SA)
Trumpet coral (P)
Frogspawn? (A) I really like the frogspawn, especially with the clowns, don’t have a lot of space though? Suggestions for something my clowns can host? Not sure on anemones…
Silver branch Pumping xenia (P)

Miscellaneous
Cheato


You guys are the best, thanks for the help!

[Waterlogged]

My copperband is my favorite fish. He eats well but I have a bigger tank. 55g will limit you.

[stacef]

Originally Posted by dinor2

Thanks! I personally don't care to see the snail tracks so I scrape as much as I can

Haha just to clear up any confusion.
I brush mine off to.. just if you look at them closely, it'sneat how they go in a pattern like they do.. and you could see it in that pic.

Hahaha..forget i ever mentioned it

[dinor2]

Originally Posted by stacef

Haha just to clear up any confusion.
I brush mine off to.. just if you look at them closely, it'sneat how they go in a pattern like they do.. and you could see it in that pic.

Hahaha..forget i ever mentioned it

Oh gosh, online communicating is tricky! I did not take offense to anything, I hope you didn't think that put me off or anything! It didn't! I used to like those little tracks but, after a while, it got to the point where there were too many tracks and not enough fish to look at! (Still aren't enough fish!)

So, anyways, sorry I came across badly earlier! I don't want to scare anyone away from replying to me!

[dinor2]

Originally Posted by Waterlogged

My copperband is my favorite fish. He eats well but I have a bigger tank. 55g will limit you.

Hmm, what if I had only five or six fish total? The largest fish would be the butterfly and the goby. I'm still debating on whether I want another angel fish anyways... what do you think?

[stacef]

Haha no!!! you didnt come across bad, I just wanted to point out that I clean mine too.. that I sounded weird the way I wrote it..it sounded like I like my glass cloudy, hahha. Anywyas!! Wonderful tank! hahah

[dinor2]

Thanks Stace!

[Gohn]

Dana,
Beautiful photos - nice planning is paying off I see. Very wise to wait for your mandarin. Many people buy them and they "live" for a while but are really starving as they need a mature reef to provide the wee beasties (tiny bits of near microscopic fauna to nibble on) I've always wanted to have one but just found out how and am waiting just as you are. BTW - sorry to sound dumb but what do you mean by dt in your original post. Thanks and enjoy that beautiful tank.

[dinor2]

Originally Posted by Gohn

Dana,
Beautiful photos - nice planning is paying off I see. Very wise to wait for your mandarin. Many people buy them and they "live" for a while but are really starving as they need a mature reef to provide the wee beasties (tiny bits of near microscopic fauna to nibble on) I've always wanted to have one but just found out how and am waiting just as you are. BTW - sorry to sound dumb but what do you mean by dt in your original post. Thanks and enjoy that beautiful tank.

Wow, thanks so much! I'm actually not even sure I'll get a mandarin, going to do more research on them but, they seem to be very delicate and possibly better left for the ocean, but I have another 2 years so I'm sure something new will come up with them! Another thing that makes me hesitate about getting one is that so far, both my fish eat the tiny pods, the one's that a mandarin will probably need. I have at least three different types of pods but just not confident that a 55gal will be able to sustain enough of the pods for all those fish.... for now, just trying to figure out what corals to add next and get the second clown, which will be a tank raised one like the first. Man those fish are HARDY!

Thanks again for the nice comments, I am definitly enjoying my tank! Great stress reliever.

[reefcouple]

Mandarins are great fish and easy to keep in an established tank, a year old tank would suffice.. as long as you dont have similar fish, they eat alot of pods...

you should post some updated pics as the tank comes along???

nice pic of the angel and clown..

[dinor2]

Well, I have to admit I was amazed to realize how fast my kenya tree has grown!


Here are pics I took yesterday of the newest additions: the angel fish was mia as he's a nocturnal one.




The clown loves having another fish in the tank with him!




Next pics probably won't be until I can take some of the brittle sea star or maybe May, after my birthday. Planning some major additions in May!

[reefcouple]

Hey Dana, you may want to consider a diamond goby, my sand bed looks brand new everyday... its like a built in maid lol... it was such a good investment.... my other goby didnt do half the job my diamond does.. he/she cleans the entire sand bed everyday.

I like the tank and pics.. alot of fun huh too addicting tho.

[dinor2]

Oops, didn't mean to say the angel fish was mia, the brittle sea star was! The more I read here and online the more convinced I am that I'd like a diamond goby, I'm thinking of adding him, the second clown and the butterfly on my birthday, depending on how much $ I get... I'm really not concerned about the butterfly eating, I have one of those tanks that is just full of baby aptasia and probably always will because there's a ton of them in my overflow, which, as I understand it is a good thing. So, even when the copperband goes to town on the dt with those, there will probably be more popping up steadily anyways. So those along with seaweed and mysis should be a good diet for him/her....

I definitly want to fill my dt with more corals though, any suggestions from my list earlier? Any on my list I should stay away from? I researched them but would love to hear from experienced keepers!