It's hard to figure as a novice, what works well, what doesn't. Note: I'm not saying get ALL of these, just that this is a suggestion list to choose from.
20-40 gallons: shrimp other than cleaner (harasses fish) or coral banded (eats fish) interesting inverts, redstripe gobies or similar, tailspot blenny, one chromis, one royal gramma, one firefish (with lid).
Will die, even if small: sandsifting goby, watchman, dragon goby; mandarin or other dragonet.
50-75 gallons: all of the above, plus lawnmower, jawfish (with 4" sandbed); small dragonet WITH year-old prolific 20 gallon fuge; 1 sandsifting goby; smallest damsels, 1 each; chalk bass. Mild percula clowns possible, but will possibly become a pita toward other fishes. Wait a year on an anemone. They will accept a hammer coral or toadstool as a substitute. Smallest wrasses, with caution.
80-100 gallons; all of the above, more damsels, 1 of a kind; one small-species angel, once tank matures [1 year]; one small-species tang, again, mature tank; mandy will live without fuge if tank is mature and no other predation of copepods. Wrasses. The 'red' clown species and clarkiis.
200 gallons: all the above, a little more of some species.
300 gallons: all the above, larger, faster swimmers, tangs, angels, etc, with caution.
These aren't hard and fast, just suggestions for what species are going to do best, and what ones you might have trouble keeping in some tanks---for instance, getting a sand-sifting goby for a 20 gallon is almost always going to end badly. You can do tradeoffs, ie, certain clowns in a 50, if they've got the whole tank; and I'm not experienced in eels, lions, and carnivorous fishes, so I leave it to others where they fit---although people who have, say, lions, in larger tanks say they do move around quite a bit and seem to enjoy the space. It's hard when you got to the lfs and see a cute itty bitty fish in what you'd swear is hardly a 20 g---to know, as a novice, that that fish will be a foot long full-grown; or that this fish eats only mysterious film off rocks, and if your rocks aren't 'old' enough in the environment, the poor thing will starve (some angels are in this category; the rainford goby and linckia starfish seem to be).
So it can't be said too often: impulse-buys are not the way to go. Get the name, write it down, go home and get on the internet: find out about that fish before you drop it into your rockwork. As a fer-instance, I got a lovely yellow dottyback that proved to terrify the damsels, nip his neighbors, and who was impossible to catch. I figured how---but that fish was smarter than a fifth grader, to use a popular phrase, and certainly smarter than I was---I'd been stupid enough to buy him. He finally went back to the lfs to find a new victim somewhere else in the city, I'm sure. Dottybacks can be like that. Beautiful fish. Biiiiiiiiiig attitude. I don't recommend them unless you have fish that are just as onery---and if a blue velvet damsel runs scared of him, that's one onery fish.
HTH a bit, and provokes a discussion that may help people compose their fish lists.
20-40 gallons: shrimp other than cleaner (harasses fish) or coral banded (eats fish) interesting inverts, redstripe gobies or similar, tailspot blenny, one chromis, one royal gramma, one firefish (with lid).
Will die, even if small: sandsifting goby, watchman, dragon goby; mandarin or other dragonet.
50-75 gallons: all of the above, plus lawnmower, jawfish (with 4" sandbed); small dragonet WITH year-old prolific 20 gallon fuge; 1 sandsifting goby; smallest damsels, 1 each; chalk bass. Mild percula clowns possible, but will possibly become a pita toward other fishes. Wait a year on an anemone. They will accept a hammer coral or toadstool as a substitute. Smallest wrasses, with caution.
80-100 gallons; all of the above, more damsels, 1 of a kind; one small-species angel, once tank matures [1 year]; one small-species tang, again, mature tank; mandy will live without fuge if tank is mature and no other predation of copepods. Wrasses. The 'red' clown species and clarkiis.
200 gallons: all the above, a little more of some species.
300 gallons: all the above, larger, faster swimmers, tangs, angels, etc, with caution.
These aren't hard and fast, just suggestions for what species are going to do best, and what ones you might have trouble keeping in some tanks---for instance, getting a sand-sifting goby for a 20 gallon is almost always going to end badly. You can do tradeoffs, ie, certain clowns in a 50, if they've got the whole tank; and I'm not experienced in eels, lions, and carnivorous fishes, so I leave it to others where they fit---although people who have, say, lions, in larger tanks say they do move around quite a bit and seem to enjoy the space. It's hard when you got to the lfs and see a cute itty bitty fish in what you'd swear is hardly a 20 g---to know, as a novice, that that fish will be a foot long full-grown; or that this fish eats only mysterious film off rocks, and if your rocks aren't 'old' enough in the environment, the poor thing will starve (some angels are in this category; the rainford goby and linckia starfish seem to be).
So it can't be said too often: impulse-buys are not the way to go. Get the name, write it down, go home and get on the internet: find out about that fish before you drop it into your rockwork. As a fer-instance, I got a lovely yellow dottyback that proved to terrify the damsels, nip his neighbors, and who was impossible to catch. I figured how---but that fish was smarter than a fifth grader, to use a popular phrase, and certainly smarter than I was---I'd been stupid enough to buy him. He finally went back to the lfs to find a new victim somewhere else in the city, I'm sure. Dottybacks can be like that. Beautiful fish. Biiiiiiiiiig attitude. I don't recommend them unless you have fish that are just as onery---and if a blue velvet damsel runs scared of him, that's one onery fish.
HTH a bit, and provokes a discussion that may help people compose their fish lists.
