Carribean Fish Selection

[Steve-H]

All,
Can anyone point me in the right direction to find the proper selection of fish for a given geographic area ?
My tank is slowly getting ready to start adding fish (little by little of course !) But my ultimate goal is to create an image of the eastern Caribbean waters.
So far I've got my CUC; most of which come from that area (The chitons I've seen in Northern PR are HUGE), so Im hopeful that I can continue.
Im looking for the small fishes, as I only have a 39g Cadlights tank.


Thanks !
Steve

 

[lhm nole]

four eye butterfly
banded butterfly
hi hat
scrawled boxfish
blue tang
beau greagory
yellowtail snapper
cuban/spanish hogfish
queen angel
french
rock beauty
towndsend
blue
bluehead wrasse
soldierfish

just off the top of my head that I have actually seen with my own eyes

 

[Cracken]

goldentail moray

 

[Beaun]

C. argi - Pygmy angel
Serranus tortugarum - Chalk Bass
Apogon spp - Flame Cardinal
Opistognathus aurifrons - Yellowheaded jawfish
Gramma loreto - Royal Gramma
Liopropoma rubre - Swissguard basslet

All would be ok in a 40g tank. the gramma and chalk bass would not get along, although if you get two chalk bass you will have a pair automatically (simultaneous hermaphrodites). The argi will be the most aggressive out of that list so add it last.

 

[philter4]

Banded and 4-eye butterfly usually don't do well, they are coral eaters, though no 100% it is still a huge portion of the diet. The atlantic longnose is easy to care for, though not the most beautiful butterfly, my avitar is the first one I collected years ago.

Also townsends are FL only, they are not found in the caribbean, they are a hybrid between queen and blue angels, and blues don't live across the gulf stream. Other then that the list above is a really nice one. There are a lot more fish, my favorite are the two species of pygmy angels, the atlantic flameback and the cherub, both are found in the eastern Caribbean, and there are several really nice gobies and blennies, not to mention 7 or 8 species of jawfish also found there.

 

[lhm nole]

Living by Destin florida got me a little confused on the angels.

 

[michael_cb_125]

Liopropoma carmabi


~Michael

 

[philter4]

Living by Destin florida got me a little confused on the angels.

What is the question on the angels, I'm sure several of us could answer any questions you have about them.

Michael, I forgot but just about any of the smaller leopropoma basslets would be great in a mixed Caribbean community, great choice.

 

[Steve-H]

Sorry just getting back to this now...

THANKS SO MUCH for your help ! I appreciate it !

 

[wfournier]

Live Aquaria has a "Caribbean Fish" category. While I'm sure they don't have everything available it might be a start.

 

[clsanchez77]

I missed this thread. The topic is a great interest of mine.

If you are still around, I use this site quite often:
www.reef.org

 

[KeysKid]

Swissguard, Rock Beauty Angel, Pygmy Angel, Jack knife are all pretty cool.

 

[Winwood]

Fishbase.org will give you a list by country or islands so this may be of interest to you. I use it all the time when trying to recreate a fish list for a biotope type setup.

 

[clsanchez77]

Winwood, you would really like the www.reef.org site. Its a database populated by divers who complete fish survey reports and is filed by bank/bouy. It gets far more detailed than fishbase. Although fishbase is the ultimate source for fish habitat/behavior/feeding information.

 

[Winwood]

Winwood, you would really like the www.reef.org site. Its a database populated by divers who complete fish survey reports and is filed by bank/bouy. It gets far more detailed than fishbase. Although fishbase is the ultimate source for fish habitat/behavior/feeding information.

Sounds pretty cool I'll check it out.