Stocking ideas for 240 mixed reef

My Marine Bettas never needed live food and went always right away after frozen mysis and feeder shrimp. When I fed them live shrimp it was more to give them some excitement.

I've seen all of mine actually hunting pods and it seems that they can make do with that for quite a while.

I recommend Marine Bettas for several reasons.
First, with the exception of shrimp they are completely reef safe.
Second, they have a very unique appearance and behavior.
Third, they are calm fish that help with getting more skittish fish out into the open.
Fourth, they can easily be kept in pairs or even groups in a large enough tank.
Fifth, they can easily be tank bred.
Sixth, they live long with the proper care. 25 years should be no problem.

All in all they are perfect aquarium fish that will adapt well to captivity and thrive in a reef tank.

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But aren't the smaller fish in danger of becoming a snack? I was thinking about getting a pair in my 240 also.
 
IME Marine Bettas are only interested in shrimp or cut up food pieces. All the ones I ever had never touched anything that was recognizable as a fish.
Of course, if you let them starve to a certain level all bets are off, but that applies to many fish. In fact, I would be much more concerned about clownfish or jawfish taking smaller fish as snacks than Marine Bettas.

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Thanks to all who provided input! I'm feeling excited about my fish stock listing. now I just need to wait for my tank to be ready.. In January, I hope!

For corals, I've been pretty set on the overall idea for a long time now. I'm going to keep the number of species rather limited, and I'm going to be real careful about planning for long term growth. I had my last tank long enough to realize what the pitfalls of overcrowding corals are. After getting the tank to look how I wanted to, it was a losing struggle keeping it that way as zoanthids and various montiporas took over.

I live in south Florida and really like the local rock flower anemones, photosynethetic gorgonians, ricordea, and St Thomas mushrooms. Those will make up most of my coral/corallimorph selection. I will probably add a clam or two and maybe a couple euphyllia corals and Zoanthid rock islands. Thought about doing a strictly Caribbean biotope, but the fish selection just didn't excite me enough.
 
Resurrecting my thread now that I've had the system up and running since April. Was pretty patient initially, but have been adding quite a few fish and corals in last 2 months. So far tank has been running great - no algae problems in the display (some nuisance algae in refugium). My fish stock list has some similarities to my initial ideas and the feedback here, but diverged a little:

Reminder, tanks is 8' x 28" x 20" tall with 37 gallon refugium and 50ish gallon sump

In order of addition (DD=divers den). Would consider fully stocked except I may add a pair of clowns:

1 marine betta
2 bonded pair of flame hawkfish (DD)
4 royal grammas (bough as juveniles)
1 lavendar tang (DD)
1 chevron tang (juvenile)
2 rainford's gobies (DD / captive bred) - unfortunately, these guys are slowly starving
1 majestic angelfish (DD / juvenile captive bred)
1 mystery wrasse
1 sargassum triggerfish (DD) - likes back and belly rubs
1 longnose butterflyfish
1 muelleri butterflyfish (chelmon muelleri)

The butterflies were just added to display tank after quarantine today. The lavender tang was initially aggressive, but seemed to lose interest in an hour. The chevron still shows some aggression, but doesn't seem to be too dangerous. Butterflies are eating all frozen food. I love the Muelleri - so happy Live Aquaria got them in stock finally. Beautiful fish!

invertebrates:

2 cleaner shrimp (large)
misc snails

LPS:
frogspawn coral
hammer coral
2 torch corals
duncan coral

Anemones:
2 tube anemones
assorted rock anemones (10+)
mini maxi anemone

Mushrooms & Misc:
assorted ricordea florida and ricordea yuma
st thomas mushrooms (2)
blue sympodium coral

Soft Corals:
green finger sinularia
green and purple toadstool
long polyp green toadstool
purple stereonepthea
green nepthea (biota)
chili coral (NPS)
 
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