Stocking a tank with male/female pairs

[DivePalau]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking for to add several mail/female pairs of fish to my 75 gallon reef tank. I thought in the past I ran across a good article/post about this but I haven't been able to find it, so I'm asking for some expert advice.

The obvious first choice are a pair of clowns. I was looking for clowns that don't get too big and will bond to a quadricolor anemone. So maybe a Clarki pair?

A pair of wrasses would be nice. It seems females are harder to find than the males. I found a m/f pair of melanomous wrasses althought they get up to 6 inches in size.

I also no bangaii cardinals are another obvious choice. For some reason they don't interest me much at this point.

A long time ago I had a pair of target mandarins and they did a beautiful courtship dance at night, alas one jumped, and I don't want anymore mandarins in my smallish tank.

I've also thought about a pair of anthias.

What do you guys think? Any other fish that I could pair up?

Thanks,
Chris

 

[small alien]

Pairs are awesome. Trios can be great too, like my scooters. Check my sig for my pairs and some ideas. Cheers.

 

[small alien]

Some more ideas. Shrimp gobies. Jawfish. Fridman dottyback. Many wrasses as you said. Dwarf angels. Firefish if you get an established pair are super. Good luck.

 

[DivePalau]

Some more ideas. Shrimp gobies. Jawfish. Fridman dottyback. Many wrasses as you said. Dwarf angels. Firefish if you get an established pair are super. Good luck.

Great suggestions. So the angels, dotty's and firefish can be identified as male and female?

 

[treylane]

Angels are hermaphrodites like clownfish (cept they start out female), get a tiny one and a less tiny one and you'll likely have a pair. Firefish you're just gonna have to stare at a bunch at the LFS and find two that don't hate each other, there's no other way to tell the diff.

 

[Toddrtrex]

One thing, I would try to get a more passive clown pair -- Clarkiis can be aggressive, even more so when they are spawning.

 

[Cantonesefish]

I think a pair of leopard wrasses would go great in that tank, especially since you don't want any mandarins... go for one of the more docile species like M. bipartitus, with two females pairing should be very easy

How's the weather in Palau?

 

[DivePalau]

What do u recommend for hosting a quadricolor? I figured a maroon and tomato were meaner then clarkii. I'll look into the leopards.

83 degrees every day in Palau, at least it was this past January when I was there.

 

[n8ball2013]

we have a pair of blue throat triggers. They dont act like a pair much but I are still very entertaining. introduce them at the same time too. We had our male first and it was a scary moment adding the female.

 

[small alien]

Id go captive bread ocellaris for clowns. Or skunks. Black ocellaris are awesome. I love my nakeds. Something about clowns is just fun. Will you have an anemone?

 

[tarvis]

Anthias are cool and always moving about probably shouldn't be to difficult to find either

 

[small alien]

Finally remembered what quadricolor is.

 

[DivePalau]

Bluethroats are cool. Didn't think about those. Are they the pricey ones?(maybe I'm thinking of crosshatches) thanks forthe idea.

I want to stay away from Ocellaris. The last pair I had wouldn't host in my bubble tip.they found the hammer coral more fascinating for some reason.

 

[treylane]

Bluethroats are affordable, but .... hyper. Not a great choice for a 75g.

Clownfish are Not Smart. If you really want them to host in some particular thing, try QT'ing em with said thing so they don't have other options, and they usually stick to the same host when introduced into the DT.

 

[DivePalau]

I agree with the bluethroats. Too big for my tank too. I'll think about the ocellaris but I'm not sold on them. When I traded them for a maroon, he bolted straight for that anem. Maybe instinct... I imagine an ocellaris would react the same with an anem that it lives with in nature. Also, I don't have a quarantine tank. No place to put it unfortunately.

 

[small alien]

Well, since your ocellaris hosted in a hammer, I think we can rule out them just using their natural host. But it may be a more likely success. My ocellaris went into my bubble tip after about a month. But, hey, it's your deal, Lucille. Good luck.