Invert-friendly fish?

[bassbone]

I'm trying to stock my tank and I'm having trouble finding fish that won't demolish my inverts.
In my 75 gallon tank I have 2 emerald crabs, 10 tiny blue hermits (I'm adding 5 more every week until I get to around 30ish), 3 large turbo snails. I also have an arrow crab as a "guest", I'm only keeping him for a while to get rid of the bristleworms. Then I'm going to either trade him to another hobbyist, or return him to the LPS and get his value back in hermit crabs, lol.
I also have a pair of maroon clownfish, and a sixline wrasse. Both are stereotypically aggressive, but mine aren't aggressive with other fish at all. I've housed many different fish with them, and they've always gotten along just fine.

I've heard that a butterflyfish will eat my inverts, is this true?
What about chromis or a watchman goby?
What do you keep with your inverts?
What should I actively avoid?
What other inverts could I get? Could I add peppermint shrimp, or skunk cleaner shrimp, or both?
Sorry if I sound stupid, I'm new to inverts.
Thank you

 

[Calappidae]

What comes to mind to avoid is most wrasses, puffers, triggers, lionfish, nonreefsafe angelfish, pseudochromis (dottybacks), hawkfish, scorpion and anglerfish, and any extremely large carnivours.

Chromis and watchman gobies are peaceful to inverts.

Don't take my word on it.. but I'm pretty sure butterflies only are going to eat your clams and fanworms on your live rock rather than anything you added... and of course aren't very reef safe (sometimes alot of people have success with them in a reef tank).

My 125 gallon houses:

1 Longspine urchin
1 peppermint shrimp
4 emerald crabs
1 scarlet cleaner shrimp
1 fire shrimp
2 harlequin shrimp
1 sexy shrimp
1 anemone crab (other one is MIA)
1 tiger pistol shrimp
1 netrite snail
1 mexican turbo snail
2 astraea snails
10 various hermit crabs
3 blue/green chromis
1 ocellarus clown
1 tuxedo urchin
1 one spot foxface
1 kole eye tang
1 yellow watchman goby (paired with the tiger pistol shrimp)
1 bangai cardinal

and I believe I'm forgeting a few things but that's what comes to mind.

 

[Betta132]

I think your arrow crab is a danger... I'd suggest maybe get rid of him as soon as possible. Bristleworms are basically spiny earthworms, they're actually good for your tank.
A watchman goby/pistol shrimp combo would be awesome to watch.
Cleaner shrimp are sometimes mean to smaller shrimp... I'd suggest a swarm of peppermints or a cleaner, not both.
Emerald crabs will kill things if they run low on food.
I'd suggest maybe a dragon pipefish once the tank has time to grow lots of pods and stuff.
A chromis would be cool, too.
In a tank that size, you could probably fit two pistol/goby pairs...
A little school of cardinalfish might be neat!
Ooh, you could do a tuxedo urchin if you don't have any tiny corals that can't be picked up and moved.

 

[bassbone]

I know bristleworms are good, I don't want to get rid of them all, but, I have waaaay too many. There are so many, when the lights go off they're all over the tank, floating in the water. They would sting my tiny baby cardinalfish until they'd die, and then eat them, and I lost five cardinals that way. $125 wasted.
I'm also cutting back on my feeding, because of the worms, and my clown gets upset because I don't feed her as much as I used to. She won't let my wrasse have any of the food, lol.
I got the arrow because I wanted to try to get rid of some of the bristleworms.
He's not big enough to do any harm to anything except the worms yet, but I'm going to move him to the sump, probably tonight or tomorrow. He'll probably be happier down there since there's no light, lol...
And I reaaaally wanted a goby/shrimp pair, I just didn't want to add them until I could catch my sixline and move him somewhere else while I add new fish. Since the sixline is having problems with my new clown, I have to catch him ASAP...

 

[Betta132]

Add a big pistol shrimp first and don't get the goby yet. My tiger pistol eats bristleworms! I bet you could get two nice-sized tiger pistols... They go snapsnapsnap and kill the worms, then they eat them for you.

 

[Calappidae]

Add a big pistol shrimp first and don't get the goby yet. My tiger pistol eats bristleworms! I bet you could get two nice-sized tiger pistols... They go snapsnapsnap and kill the worms, then they eat them for you.

Not my experience. When transfering everything over there was a huge 5"+ bristleworm living under the same rock my tiger pistol and yw goby.

A bristleworm CANNOT kill a fish. A fish has scales which protect them from overly sharp objects like urchins and bristle worms.. they'd have to ram into them full speed to be inpaled. Bristleworms are benefical scavengers.. meaning they will eat what's laying dead or wasted on the bottom.. which also leads the idea that overfeeding and wasted organics is helping the worm population grow.

 

[bluecoyote79]

I had a watchman goby and Randall's pistol shrimp living with several bristle worms for years. I wish they'd have eaten the worms but no luck.