Help me pick fish

[hvacman250]

210 gallon (72x24x30 High) mixed reef

Current fish:

2 Ocellaris clowns
2 Pajama cardinals
Hippo tang
Yellow Coris wrasse
McCoskers flasher wrasse
Longnose hawkfish

What I plan to add:

Shrimp goby (have a pistol shrimp in the tank)
-Yellow, Orange Stripe Prawn, Hi Fin Red Banded, Yasha White Ray

Blenny
-Tribal, Black Combtooth, Tailspot

Wrasse
-something in the Cirrhilabrus family (can I do multiples?)
-something in the Pseudocheilinus family (maybe Mystery??)

Tang
-Powder Brown or White Cheek (HIGH priority)
-Yellow, something in the bristletooth family, or yellow/blue eye kole

The more I look at this list (and my wife looked at the selected fish on Blue Zoo and LA/DD) the more BLAH I feel. Since its a reef, butterflies and angels are out, so what's left? Am I missing exciting fish, or am I just expecting too much???

Any suggestions to "spice up" the tank?

Edit: another thing that might be worth mentioning is my prize H. Mag anemone. Its 14-15" fully inflated and my favorite specimen. Anything that would pick at/bother it is ruled out.

 

[SDguy]

I wouldn't rule out butterflies. Yellow long nose, copperband, zoster/pyramid would be nice in your sized tank.

 

[dzfish17]

I know youve ruled out angels but adding a dwarf angel like the flame would give you that wow factor that you seem to be missing. In a large tank like yours even if it did pick at the corals a little bit, it would still be worth having. I had a flame and coral beauty in my old 210 and neither one touched the corals. There are alot of reefers on here who dont have problems with angels in their reef tanks. These forums are a wealth of info but sometimes they can scare people away from having a beautiful fish that may/may not hurt their corals. JMO.

 

[hvacman250]

I edited my original post to include my thoughts on the H. Mag I have. Anything that even MIGHT bother it is out.

I thought butterflies and angels were prone to nip at corals, especially LPS/anemones. And honestly, I dont mind NOT having some kinds of corals becasue of angels/butterflies, but it cannot hurt my H. Mag

 

[JDMhoes]

For a blenny, My favorite is the African Midas Blenny. The color is bright stands out in tank and they swim everywhere. Very happy looking fish. A MUST!!

 

[Johanv]

For a blenny, My favorite is the African Midas Blenny. The color is bright stands out in tank and they swim everywhere. Very happy looking fish. A MUST!!

+1:bounce2:

 

[SecretiveFish]

I have read that in larger tanks you can keep a group of Royal Grammas which personally I think would look awesome. Or maybe a group of Chalk Basses? These are quite attractive fish too.

We have a black combtooth blenny and contrary to the other blennies we have kept, this one hides all the time. I would go for the tribal blenny and would skip the tailspot as the tailspot reaches a max size of only 2 1/2" which your hawkfish may find to delectable of a size to pass up. Have you considered a Midas Blenny?

You could probably get away with another hawkfish. We have a longnose and a swallow tail hawkfish in our 150 with few issues.

What about a mandarin?

 

[SDguy]

IMO, yellow long nose butterflies won't touch a magnifica nem.

 

[hvacman250]

I have read that in larger tanks you can keep a group of Royal Grammas which personally I think would look awesome. Or maybe a group of Chalk Basses? These are quite attractive fish too.

We have a black combtooth blenny and contrary to the other blennies we have kept, this one hides all the time. I would go for the tribal blenny and would skip the tailspot as the tailspot reaches a max size of only 2 1/2" which your hawkfish may find to delectable of a size to pass up. Have you considered a Midas Blenny?

You could probably get away with another hawkfish. We have a longnose and a swallow tail hawkfish in our 150 with few issues.

What about a mandarin?

Lots of good points. Thanks.

A Royal Gramma was a definate addition; just forgot to write it. How many could I add to group them?

Also, Midas was one of my choices, I just forgot to type it when I added the Tribal. I had a Black Comb. a while back that was FULL of personality. He was big and fat, then disappeared overnight.

Another hawkfish would be awesome.

I love mandarins, but I am 3 weeks into a 10-12 week fallow period. I have 2 quarantine tanks set up and I will quarantine EVERYTHING in the future. The consensus is dont Q Mandarins because they 99% dont carry Ich. Sorry, but after losing all these fish and doing a 10 week fallow period, I'm not willing to risk the 1%.

IMO, yellow long nose butterflies won't touch a magnifica nem.

Awesome! Is that the ONLY butterfly that would fit the bill for my tank? LA lists them as getting 9"...is that true?

 

[SDguy]

Butterflies just don't seem to attain such max sizes in captivity, even in huge systems, so I wouldn't sweat it. I had to remove a zoster for picking at gorgonians, and have heard similar stories, so I can't say pyramid/zoster would definitely 100% be OK... same with heniochus. I have no clue about copperbands.