Hey all - I've been reading this forum for quite some time now and it has been a great resource for me thus far. I figured I'd finally sign on to the forum so I could start some posts of my own.
I currently have a 31g saltwater tank (the Reefer 170) with a 9g sump that I'm hoping to develop into a reef tank, and I was hoping to solicit some advice as far as which fish would be good additions to what I currently have set up. I've done a lot of reading about requirements and care, so I have a list of candidates already, but I'm sure it isn't exhaustive by any means and I wanted to see if you all had any interesting suggestions or recommendations from personal experience.
My current setup is my first saltwater tank, but I have prior freshwater experience and I've done a lot of research thus far. The tank has been fully cycled for about a month now, so it's stable but not mature by any means (though we actually appear to have some degree of denitrification going on, which is a nice surprise). There's about a 1" sand bed at present, as well as approximately 30-35lbs of good-quality live rock - I'm not looking to add more sand at least in the near future, but I might add a bit more rock in areas to bulk up the superstructure a little (I lean towards preferring denser rockwork, but there's still a good amount of room left). My primary goal with the tank is to focus on corals (primarily polyps and SPS, with few to no LPS - haven't decided), but I'd like to include interesting fish and inverts as well as a secondary goal. Current livestock is as follows: Two ocellaris clowns, a pair of scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp (confirmed Indo-Pacific variety), and some snails (1x cerith, 6x astrea, 2x nassarius), as well as some live rock passengers (a brittle star, a bunch of amphipods, various hyrdrozoans, at least two varieties of coralline which are already taking over a section of the tank, and possibly a few small worms). The only corallimorph that is in the tank so far is a small ricordea florida which seems to be doing well so far. All of our parameters are right where they need to be, including calcium and dKH - phosphates aren't nonexistent yet, but I just set an RO/DI unit last week and they're headed towards zero. There is also currently a bicolor dottyback in the tank which will hopefully be gone by tomorrow afternoon - the LFS was closing in five minutes, and I got it mixed up in my head with the royal gramma (I'm colorblind but I've been told they're pretty close anyway) without time to Google it like I usually do. Never making that mistake again, suffice to say.
Ideally, I'm going for a peaceful community tank, with a reasonably dense population (without detracting from the ability to have a lot of coral, of course). I'm not a huge fan of gobies generally speaking, but firefish in particular look good to me (another LFS has a purple firefish currently, but I haven't jump-proofed the tank yet so I haven't made that purchase - as of now). I'm also a fan of crustaceans (and inverts generally), but I'm aware that a tradeoff exists for reef-safety that limits choices a good deal on that front. I'm willing to spend a bit more for unusual or interesting livestock that I like from an aesthetic standpoint, but I'd like to round out the remainder of the non-coral livestock without waiting too much longer (within the next six months or so, depending on how things go).
If I can provide any more info that's relevant just let me know. My rockwork is laid out in a way that provides a lot of overhead cover/tunnels, so anything that prefers that kind of environment should be relatively happy there. I'm also a fan of fish that hang out in the middle of the water column too, but nano-sized fish don't seem to overlap with that category all that often (and my clownfish do plenty of that anyway). Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Jack
I currently have a 31g saltwater tank (the Reefer 170) with a 9g sump that I'm hoping to develop into a reef tank, and I was hoping to solicit some advice as far as which fish would be good additions to what I currently have set up. I've done a lot of reading about requirements and care, so I have a list of candidates already, but I'm sure it isn't exhaustive by any means and I wanted to see if you all had any interesting suggestions or recommendations from personal experience.
My current setup is my first saltwater tank, but I have prior freshwater experience and I've done a lot of research thus far. The tank has been fully cycled for about a month now, so it's stable but not mature by any means (though we actually appear to have some degree of denitrification going on, which is a nice surprise). There's about a 1" sand bed at present, as well as approximately 30-35lbs of good-quality live rock - I'm not looking to add more sand at least in the near future, but I might add a bit more rock in areas to bulk up the superstructure a little (I lean towards preferring denser rockwork, but there's still a good amount of room left). My primary goal with the tank is to focus on corals (primarily polyps and SPS, with few to no LPS - haven't decided), but I'd like to include interesting fish and inverts as well as a secondary goal. Current livestock is as follows: Two ocellaris clowns, a pair of scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp (confirmed Indo-Pacific variety), and some snails (1x cerith, 6x astrea, 2x nassarius), as well as some live rock passengers (a brittle star, a bunch of amphipods, various hyrdrozoans, at least two varieties of coralline which are already taking over a section of the tank, and possibly a few small worms). The only corallimorph that is in the tank so far is a small ricordea florida which seems to be doing well so far. All of our parameters are right where they need to be, including calcium and dKH - phosphates aren't nonexistent yet, but I just set an RO/DI unit last week and they're headed towards zero. There is also currently a bicolor dottyback in the tank which will hopefully be gone by tomorrow afternoon - the LFS was closing in five minutes, and I got it mixed up in my head with the royal gramma (I'm colorblind but I've been told they're pretty close anyway) without time to Google it like I usually do. Never making that mistake again, suffice to say.
Ideally, I'm going for a peaceful community tank, with a reasonably dense population (without detracting from the ability to have a lot of coral, of course). I'm not a huge fan of gobies generally speaking, but firefish in particular look good to me (another LFS has a purple firefish currently, but I haven't jump-proofed the tank yet so I haven't made that purchase - as of now). I'm also a fan of crustaceans (and inverts generally), but I'm aware that a tradeoff exists for reef-safety that limits choices a good deal on that front. I'm willing to spend a bit more for unusual or interesting livestock that I like from an aesthetic standpoint, but I'd like to round out the remainder of the non-coral livestock without waiting too much longer (within the next six months or so, depending on how things go).
If I can provide any more info that's relevant just let me know. My rockwork is laid out in a way that provides a lot of overhead cover/tunnels, so anything that prefers that kind of environment should be relatively happy there. I'm also a fan of fish that hang out in the middle of the water column too, but nano-sized fish don't seem to overlap with that category all that often (and my clownfish do plenty of that anyway). Thanks in advance for any suggestions!
Jack
