Unique Nano Reef Fish

[jason12345]

Hello! I have a 18x18x10 reef and I am looking for some fancy new fish. Right now all I have is my one lawnmower blenny that may have to go soon because hes getting a little larger then I would like. I Used to have a McCosker's And I absolutely loved that fish. So maybe another Flasher wrasse? So far these are my ideas, to chose from, No im not putting all thiese fish in my reef. They are just nearly ideas.
-Flasher wrasse
- Blue striped pipe fish
- Atlantic Swalesi Basslet
- helfrichi firefish
- 2/3 Orange lined Cardinal fish
- Group of Barnicle blennys
- harem of chalk bass
- Mandarin/ Scotter blenny (I have a lfs that can get them eating frozen, And I have a 20l refuge)
- Red head goby
- PJ cardinal
- clown goby (Freakin thing better not touch my sps)
-Neon/ Sharknose goby
- Green Banded Goby
- Red Striped Goby
- Clown Blenny
- Rose Antenna Goby
-Cave Goby
- flaming prawn gobie
- Orangemarked Goby
- Highfin Perchlet
- Line Spot Flasher Wrasse
- Fancy gumdrop coral croucher
- longnose hawkfish
- Falco Hawk
- Tail spot blenny
- Pinkstreaked Wrasse
- Mystery wrasse
- Blue Flasher Fairy Wrasse

 

[sieloff84]

Always been a big fan of the firefish

 

[justjosh012]

i had a priolepis goby for about a year before i gave him away, and he weas awesome. if you have cave or ledge, he will be upside down perched in it, and even dart out and back for food upside down. he was a favorite of guests, and stayed quite small.

 

[rachenbrazil]

Yellow or blue assessors should be in list as well.

 

[Meus]

Hello! I have a 18x18x10 reef and I am looking for some fancy new fish. Right now all I have is my one lawnmower blenny that may have to go soon because hes getting a little larger then I would like. I Used to have a McCosker's And I absolutely loved that fish. So maybe another Flasher wrasse? So far these are my ideas, to chose from, No im not putting all thiese fish in my reef. They are just nearly ideas.
-Flasher wrasse
- Blue striped pipe fish Make sure you know what you're getting into with this fish
- Atlantic Swalesi Basslet
- helfrichi firefish
- 2/3 Orange lined Cardinal fish
- Group of Barnicle blennys
- harem of chalk bass One may do, but a harem is a bit much
- Mandarin/ Scotter blenny (I have a lfs that can get them eating frozen, And I have a 20l refuge) My top pick, just make sure he is eating prepared foods, and have brine shrimp eggs on hand in case he stops and needs live food
- Red head goby
- PJ cardinal
- clown goby (Freakin thing better not touch my sps) You said it, they do tend to pick at sps corals, so I'd just avoid this species.
-Neon/ Sharknose goby
- Green Banded Goby
- Red Striped Goby
- Clown Blenny
- Rose Antenna Goby
-Cave Goby
- flaming prawn gobie
- Orangemarked Goby
- Highfin Perchlet
- Line Spot Flasher Wrasse
- Fancy gumdrop coral croucher These are actually scorpionfish, and can give you a painful sting. And they are quite reclusive, there is a high chance that you won't see this. Plus, many of them need live ghost shrimps, and sometimes they don't ever take frozen
- longnose hawkfish Gets too big, putting a 5" fish in an 18" tank is probably not a good idea.
- Falco Hawk It is possible that the falco would kill your wrasse, however, I'd say go for it. I had my falco playing fetch, hide&go seek, and he was starting to swim through hoops
- Tail spot blenny
- Pinkstreaked Wrasse
- Mystery wrasse
- Blue Flasher Fairy Wrasse

Any more wrasse may cause territorial problems, not only that but the tank is a bit small so I'd say go for a substrate dweller. Hawkfish will sometimes go after wrasse, and in a small tank, there is no where for the wrasse to die. If you don't want shrimp and are willing to give up the wrasse. I'd say go for the hawkfish, they really are worth keeping singly

 

[Ambition]

Meus did a good job explaining your options. I would say try a mandarin and get it eating prepared foods. Also be sure to get a culture of pods going to add to the tank. Even if eating prepared they need the pods to eat throughout the day. They eat almost constantly. The pink streak wrasse may get any pods you add to the tank for the mandarin before the mandarin gets to them...

Although I am going to say that you should stay away from fairy and flasher wrasses. I have had a fairy wrasse (1.5" pylei fairy) in a 20 long QT, and it was not happy at all. IMO they need at least a 36"x18" foot print to swim around as they are quite active.

 

[rssjsb]

I wouldn't put any dragonette (scooter or mandarin) in a tank that small. Even if they eat mysis or something else, it may not be enough to keep the fish alive. I speak from painful experience here.

I also wouldn't keep any wrasse in that tank except maybe a possum wrasse. I love my possum, it's one of my favorite fish. Very easy to keep.

Bluestripe pipefish are a little harder to find but are actually not that difficult to keep if your tank and refugium are mature. They're so small that they can actually be happy in a setup like yours for a long time without taking prepared foods (as long as they don't have to compete for pods). You could keep a little harem, but you have to make sure that you only have one male or they'll fight to the death. The downside is that, in my experience, they don't like bright lights, so you may only see them swimming around at feeding and once the main lights go off, in the "twilight" when your actinics are on.

Tailspot blennies are also a favorite of mine. Just be sure your tank is covered because they're known to jump.

 

[Arkayology]

possum wrasse

 

[Meus]

I wouldn't put any dragonette (scooter or mandarin) in a tank that small. Even if they eat mysis or something else, it may not be enough to keep the fish alive. I speak from painful experience here.

I also wouldn't keep any wrasse in that tank except maybe a possum wrasse. I love my possum, it's one of my favorite fish. Very easy to keep.

Bluestripe pipefish are a little harder to find but are actually not that difficult to keep if your tank and refugium are mature. They're so small that they can actually be happy in a setup like yours for a long time without taking prepared foods (as long as they don't have to compete for pods). You could keep a little harem, but you have to make sure that you only have one male or they'll fight to the death. The downside is that, in my experience, they don't like bright lights, so you may only see them swimming around at feeding and once the main lights go off, in the "twilight" when your actinics are on.

Tailspot blennies are also a favorite of mine. Just be sure your tank is covered because they're known to jump.

So long as the mandarin is eating prepared foods it should be fine. Many have gotten their mandarins to eat pellets. IMHO, weaning them onto prepared foods is a safer method than relying on a large to tank satisfy their food demands. And if they are eating mysis and frozen brine and pellets, they should be perfectly fine in a tank under the previous norm.
http://en.microcosmaquariumexplorer.com/wiki/Breeding_the_Green_Mandarin
http://www.melevsreef.com/mandarin_diner.html

I concur with the possum, but adding one to a tank that already has another wrasse may cause problems.

 

[SushiGirl]

I wouldn't put any dragonette (scooter or mandarin) in a tank that small. Even if they eat mysis or something else, it may not be enough to keep the fish alive. I speak from painful experience here.

I also wouldn't keep any wrasse in that tank except maybe a possum wrasse. I love my possum, it's one of my favorite fish. Very easy to keep.

I agree. Lots of people with mandarins eating prepared foods still lose them as rssjsb did because prepared food is not enough to sustain them. See this post on their eating needs. I always see threads about the success of getting them to eat prepared foods, then threads about them dying & they don't understand why.

Flashers need a lot of room. I had one in a 3' 38 gallon tank a long time ago & it wasn't enough room for it.

Orange-lined cardinals would be good, or red spots if you can find them. Red-headed gobies are great fish, I had a pair for a couple of years. Very inquisitive little fish. Shrimp goby/pistol shrimp pairs are also interesting to watch.

 

[jason12345]

I agree. Lots of people with mandarins eating prepared foods still lose them as rssjsb did because prepared food is not enough to sustain them. See this post on their eating needs. I always see threads about the success of getting them to eat prepared foods, then threads about them dying & they don't understand why.

Flashers need a lot of room. I had one in a 3' 38 gallon tank a long time ago & it wasn't enough room for it.

Orange-lined cardinals would be good, or red spots if you can find them. Red-headed gobies are great fish, I had a pair for a couple of years. Very inquisitive little fish. Shrimp goby/pistol shrimp pairs are also interesting to watch.

I was planning on hatching baby brine twice a week and feeding it through paul b's feeder, if i did got one, but i am still quite hesitant.
Also my tank is bare bottom, so no shrimp gobys.... I know some of the fish i posted probably wouldn't work, but where something to think about. For wrasses I was thinking about maybe a mccoskers as it stays relativity small compared to the others, but the tanks still really small for a flasher. So i was thinking more about a pink streaked or some of the other's in the Wetmorella genus.

 

[jason12345]

I wouldn't put any dragonette (scooter or mandarin) in a tank that small. Even if they eat mysis or something else, it may not be enough to keep the fish alive. I speak from painful experience here.

I also wouldn't keep any wrasse in that tank except maybe a possum wrasse. I love my possum, it's one of my favorite fish. Very easy to keep.

Bluestripe pipefish are a little harder to find but are actually not that difficult to keep if your tank and refugium are mature. They're so small that they can actually be happy in a setup like yours for a long time without taking prepared foods (as long as they don't have to compete for pods). You could keep a little harem, but you have to make sure that you only have one male or they'll fight to the death. The downside is that, in my experience, they don't like bright lights, so you may only see them swimming around at feeding and once the main lights go off, in the "twilight" when your actinics are on.

Tailspot blennies are also a favorite of mine. Just be sure your tank is covered because they're known to jump.

The bluestripe at my lfs is in the display and is eating. I was also planning on feeding it baby brine through the feeder. But if i get the pipe fish, deff. no mandarin.

 

[SushiGirl]

I don't know anything about pink-streaked wrasses, just Carpenter's, which are about the same as McCoskers. I got mine back when no one knew anything about them & they were $24.99 LOL. At that time I tried to buy fish no one else had like my 3 black cardinals before I had the wrasses. They weren't active, but they were nosy with what I was doing outside the tank, kinda like my Orbic Cardinal I have now...follows me around & comes to me when I'm around the tank & talk to him. My orange-spotted shrimp goby doesn't sift or burrow (or pair with my pistol LOL) she just lives in the rocks, I suspect she would do ok without sand.

 

[jason12345]

So far my stocking list is something like this
- Male pinkstreaked wrasse
- fire fish, maybe a helfrichi
- two orange lined cardinals, maybe three although i feel like thats pushing the bioload
- pgmy geo. hawk
- Neon/ shark nose goby
- Swalesi Basslet
- Red headed goby
-Green Banded Goby
- Barnicle blennys
- Red Striped Goby
- priolepis goby


lol i wish, way too many fish for my tank.... but there all so cute! maybe i should just do one or two really cool fish, like the pipefish and a green spotted mandarin and call it quits.... But those little barnicle blennys....

 

[Meus]

I agree. Lots of people with mandarins eating prepared foods still lose them as rssjsb did because prepared food is not enough to sustain them. See this post on their eating needs. I always see threads about the success of getting them to eat prepared foods, then threads about them dying & they don't understand why.

Flashers need a lot of room. I had one in a 3' 38 gallon tank a long time ago & it wasn't enough room for it.

Orange-lined cardinals would be good, or red spots if you can find them. Red-headed gobies are great fish, I had a pair for a couple of years. Very inquisitive little fish. Shrimp goby/pistol shrimp pairs are also interesting to watch.

Sushi, there are a number of breeders who feed their stock prepared foods as the base of their diet. Live foods only come in to play to simulate abundance and trigger spawning. Even so, if given a variety of prepared foods, and live snacks the mandarins should do perfectly fine.

Also, un-enriched Brine shrimp(even artemia(babies)) lack DHA's and any DHA's that they have when born are rapidly converted to EPA's. As a whole, brine shrimp are convenient, but by not enriching you will slowly starve out whatever you're feeding them to. It would be much better to wean any fish onto prepared foods, esp. considering pipefish have small stomach tracks, so they need to be fed the live foods twice or thrice per day.

To the OP: Honestly, at this point don't try to keep anything you can't handle. Do your own research and decide what you want based off of what you can research. Often times you will find most fish rewarding to keep, even the easy ones, like firefish or tailspot blennies.

Best of Luck,
~Nathaniel

 

[Grouperhead]

geometric pygmy hawkfish

 

[SushiGirl]

Sushi, there are a number of breeders who feed their stock prepared foods as the base of their diet. Live foods only come in to play to simulate abundance and trigger spawning.

Yes, and yet many of them are still dying very early deaths in the tanks of those who purchase them rather than living long life spans.

 

[Meus]

Yes, and yet many of them are still dying very early deaths in the tanks of those who purchase them rather than living long life spans.

Even on prepared foods you need to put some effort into variety. It would seem those who bought their weaned mandarins did not put effort into variety, nor did they do their research. But the point is, if you do it right, prepared foods are a much better option than relying on the productivity of tiny, live crustaceans in a large tank. Not only that, but culturing copepods has come a long way. It is possible to culture enough pods to feed a mandarin every day. If anything, a smaller tank would provide a higher density, thus you could use less copepods, with minimal waste..

 

[Empty Bottles]

I definitely wouldn't put a flasher wrasse in that size tank. You've got room for a PJ Cardinal, Firefish and a small goby. There's a category for nano fish on live aquaria you should check out.

 

[debincalif]

I just got a neon blue goby over the weekend and I already love him! He adds a bright spash of color and it's fun to see where he will end up perching. Cool little fish!