So I started this reply last night. Ended up leaving it until this morning because I got distracted with that pesky work stuff....
Do you have a neon Goby? If not I would try to get a mated pair, they are a lot of fun to have around and actively clean the larger fish.
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I would second a NG pair, they are fun to watch. Also have you thought about adding a wrasse? I love my fairy wrasse and he is a model citizen. You could also have a herum of a male and two females. The only problem with wrasses is they like their pods, so if you want a mandarin or lots of pods then a wrasse may not be the best idea. In saying that, I've got stacks of pods in my DT but they know that they can only come out at night when the wrasse is snoozing.
These are all good ideas and definitely the types of things I think we're looking for right now. I definitely do not have a Neon Goby yet. Are those the same as the "Cleaner Goby?" How long have you had yours for? If they are the same thing, I thought they were tough to keep because they naturally take to parasites and usually end up starving out in captivity? Definitely a thought worth considering though. I'm pretty sure I've seen them for sale around here a couple times. Not as often as other things though.
As for the Wrasses you asked about Fishy. That is where we might be headed. Our thinking is that it's probably easier to maintain a harum then mandarins because they will take other food besides the pods more easily. Plus, as we've learned. We need more open water column swimmers. It's easy to find rock and sand dwellers in a super peaceful reef tank. So we might change routes and leave the Mandarins out and opt for a harum at this point. At least that's the latest line of thought. :thumbsup:
I ran into the same issue with a harum though as the Tang. I feel like I should add a harum further down the line and add a few other things before "the gang" and "the big fish in the tank." Thoughts?
Here's a question on stocking based off those ideas. What would the consensus be on something like 2 Clowns, 1 YWG, 1 Tailspot, 1 Purple Firefish, with future additions of: 1 Red-Line Wrasse, 7 (or smaller school) Blue-eye Cardinals, 3 or 4 Flasher Wrasse (harum) and a Kole Tang in a 90?
We've also tried putting 2 different Royal Gramm's through QT. They make it through treatment both times and then die in our 10 gallon holding tank. But other fish make it through fine, so I'm jinxed on RG's and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. But one of those is a possible addition as a single fish that could be added in or left out to the above list.
Way to many fish in the long run when they're full grown? Could we still fit another small wrasse or peaceful goby type fish in the above set up. Which is more of an acceptable amount for a 90? We do have lots of extra filtration with the 75 gallon fuge loaded with extra Live Rock and DSB. So I'm mostly concerned about size/space and territorial aggression if it's to crowded. My best round-a-bout guess would put the above list at approximately 50-60 inches fish at their full grown size. Which I would expect that to be fully stocked probably once you take out coral space and rockwork/sand from the 90 gallon tank.
I like my male and female Lyretail Anthias as well, but you have to be prepared to feed frozen and flake together at least twice a day until they "accidentally" start to like flake, or pellets, or whatever non frozen food you feed.
Oh, midas blenny has worked very well for me, and blue eyed cardinals as well. I have a school of six that almost always hang out together.
We've discussed Anthias a few times. We typically end up leaning away from them just because of future size. We have lots of single fish and were looking for a small group of medium/small fish. We figure we could keep more small Wrasse or other fish then Anthias I think. There really aren't many that are small enough to be a small group in a 90, right? But there are a few we like and would consider if they could be swapped in for the Wrasses or something in the stock list I was just thinking about.
We've talked about a Midas blenny as well. But we have the YWG and other similar body shaped / color of that fish. So we were looking for a different color pattern mostly over the Midas blenny. But could fit in like the Royal Gramma. If there's extra room in that potential list up top, either of those could be an extra addition to round out the tank.
I think Blue-eye Cardinals are our choice for a group of small fish. I'd love to have that contrast of a group of smaller fish. And I think the silver simplicity in a group could be a great contrast to all the other fish in the system. So I'm 90% sure we will be adding a 5-10 group of Blue-eye Cardinals to whichever stock list we end up heading towards.
I think them (Blue-eye Cards) and the Kole Tang are maybe locked into the plan for now. It's the other small / medium fish we're looking for now I think to mix around what we have those planned fish. So info on a harum of Wrasses or keeping the Red-line with a small group of Flashers. Or other possible options to mix into the above list. The Anthias could be possible if there is small version we could use like the harum of Wrasses.
So good brainstorming and ideas! :thumbsup: Thanks for throwing the thoughts around with us. What thoughts does everyone have on the options listed here?
If a modified version of that list looks like a good / right # of fish. What combination sounds like it would work the best in your experience? :wildone:
