Fish & Invert Suggestions

schnebbles

New member
Is liveaquaria the best place to get ideas on fish? I have a 40g and am trying to figure out what fish/inverts I can keep.

I like shrimp, so cleaners?

where do you get info on what pairs up together? I am open to any suggestions.

I saw a midas blenny who was cute, might want one if that would work ok. I am not sure where to begin looking to see what I can have that will get along well.
 
liveaquaria has some real good information. other than that you can post questions here in te RC forms as well. look for a forum reef fishes.
 
live aquaria has the best write up on fish that I've seen so far, there are lots of cool looking peaceful fish that will be fine with each other...even tho 2 fish may be peaceful lets use sand sifting gobies for example they occupy the same area of the tank and tho may be peaceful they may squabble a little bit if one feels the other is intruding on his territory but i don't think they are gonna fight to the death or anything, with that said try not to get more than 2 fish that are gonna be chilling on the bottom most of the time. another thing I've read is if you want a fish thats more aggressive its better to add those fish last and let the peaceful guys find their spot in the tank and get comfortable before adding the jerks. if you add the jerks first they will want to claim the whole tank and never let the peaceful guys settle in.
 
I have a 40b with a 20 gal sump and have 9 fish in addition to my CUC and corals. FYI if you have a 40b it's not 40 gals, it's 47.5 gals.

Fish that I have are
Cherub Angelfish
McCosker's wrasse
Royal Gramma
Pair Mocha Ocellaris clowns
Midas Blenny
Yellow Candy Hogfish
Scooter blenny
Matted Filefish

All get along pretty well with very little fighting with the exception of the Cherub Angelfish, he's my "terrorist" fish. Nothing bad just chasing mostly.

I also suggest to buy only Scarlet Legged Hermits, they will not kill anything, where other hermits will, especially snails for their shells. The Scarlet Legged hermit is an honest worker and does a great job. Snails are good to have a few different kinds. Nassarius snails for the sand, Astrea, One or two Mexican Turbo's, and Stomatella snails. There are others that are good but these are my pick. I've also got hundreds of brittle starfish and more asterina stars than I care to count :D They do keep the tank clean though.

Some will say that my tank is overstocked with fish, but I judge it by two things. Fish behavior, and nitrates. You need a good export system for nitrates/phosphates to have it work. A good skimmer as well as chaeto or other algae growing in your sump.

Yes Live Aquaria is a great place to find out basic info on fish you want. I highly recommend any of the fish that I have in my tank. Yes you'll love the Midas Blenny.

So pick a list of fish you want to have and post it up so we can let you know if certain fish are ok together or not.

Just remember to go SLOWLY adding livestock. Otherwise you'll get an ammonia spike and possibly kill your tank.
 
thank you! And yep, slow! I will do one to 2 fish at a time I suppose. I'll look up your list.

I don't have a sump, unfortunately. I sure wish I had room. My stand doesn't allow for one.

I'm running a canister now, not sure I'll keep it though. Protein skimmer will be added soon. So, probably can't have quite the amount of fish you have.

I've seen that reference to 47 gallons before, it didn't seem like I put that much water in. I guess I wasn't counting gallons though, I had mixed up part of the water a few days before I started in a trash can and then finished it later.

I may do a hob refugium but that won't probably help a whole lot.

When I looked up all of the wrasse's yesterday, they almost all said 55g minimum so I decided I shouldn't do one. There sure are some pretty ones though!

The scooter is a doll, he will be on my list.

I was looking at tailspot blennys too - can I have that many?

say, 1 midas, 1 scooter and 2 tailspots? I read the tailspots get along with each other.

I'm undecided about clowns, they are cute but not sure yet.
 
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Look up the reefsafe wrasses, these will be the flasher wrasses and I think they recommend a 55 gal iirc? But anyway my McCosker's doesn't have any tank size issues, only the terrorist Cherub :hammer: The McCosker's seems to be the main fish to pick on, and the CA will also pick on the Matted Filefish. He ignores the CA so it is funny to watch the CA get po'd then go after a different fish.
 
The scooter blenny will need an established tank with thousands of copepods. They are in the same family as mandarins
 
for inverest. you can order from https://aquariumdepot.com/

good price and good product.

For fish.. liveaquaria is good place to order from online

Live Aquaria is great place to gather info, and they have a compatibility list to tell you generally which fish can be housed together. I would avoid Aquarium Depot (aka Reefs2go), great deals and occasionally you get decent stock, but better chance of harmful hitchhikers and dead or sick stock. Sustainable aquatics has a few interesting choices besides their Clownfish once you figure out what you want http://www.coralreeftn.com/shop.php . Check out Reef Cleaners for CUC https://www.reefcleaners.org/cleaner-packages-with-free-shipping . ORA is another good choice for fish.
 
I saw that, darn it! Guess he won't be on the list for a while.

Check out the Hector's Goby. I had one and loved it. Sadly I got it full grown and it only lived a year then hid in the rocks, never to be seen again. Great fish though and they will eat stuff out of the sand while they're sifting it and they eat NLS pellets like a pig. Mine wouldn't even touch frozen mix or Mysis, but ate all the NLS pellets it could cram in it's mouth :lmao:
 
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