your opinion on fish please

[DebsSisterFlo]

Since I value your opinions I would like to know what you think...

Ok, my tank is a 38g, assorted corals. For fish: 1 seahorse, 1 firefish, 1 bicolor blenny, and two pj cardinals.

I would just love to try one of Mike's baby maroon clowns. I would also love one of his cardinal babies. I'm assuming the answers will be "no clown, try the cardinal". Am I right on, or would you try the clown? I figure if it doesn't behave I could always rehome it with one of you...

is it ok to have just one clown, do they get lonely? I usually see them in pairs that's why I ask. I'd also love to get a dwarf angel but for now I'm thinking that's out of the question... I'm afraid it would nip my zoos or be agressive towards the other fish? I adore the flames, but I think a pygmy would be a safer bet? Again, your opinion is??? Thankies!!!

 

[nellie54914]

I would be careful not to get too many fish in that size tank. Since what you have is generally pretty small fish it's not bad, but the more fish you put in the higher the bio load, and more chance of throwing off your water parameters. Although it really depends on your system, some people's tanks can handle more fish than others.

I don't know anything about maroons or cardinals, so can't help you there. But we have a flame angel and it doesn't touch any corals, and has never nipped at any of our fish. It is a nice friendly member of the tank! I think it just depends on the particular fish you get though, we might have just gotten lucky. When I was reading up on them before we got it, I read that if you introduce it to your tank after other fish are already in there you have less troubles with nipping since they won't be trying to defend their territory. If you start off with them they think the whole tank is theirs. Anyway, we got our flame angel after we got everything else we wanted. Of course a couple fish died after that and we had a couple new ones come in after that, but even then it never went after another fish.

 

[kass03]

I'd never put a flame in a 38 gal. Mine is VERY territorial and rules my 150 over a big jewel damsel, tomato clown and blue hippo.
It killed my coral beauty after they lived together for yrs.
IF you did get a dwarf angel the pygmy/cherub stay smaller and would be a better choice.

You know seahorses are suppose to be kept with slow peacefull fish so they get enough to eat. I'm not sure how you feed yours.
I always loved seahorses but gave up on them a long time ago because theyre hard to keep and really need a tank to themselves.

After my experience with my killer tomato clown which lived about 12-13 yrs in my 55 and killed many fish I wouldnt do a maroon either but like Michelle says every fish is different. It might be fine.
I have a different tomato in my 150 that Ive had for 11 yrs and never bothered anything. Then again it's in a 150 so dunno if thats why.

I cant say too much about overstocking because my 55 certainly is.
I never had a cardinal so don't know about those either.
I'm not sure how long a 38 gal is either to me the longer tank the better as far as stocking goes.
I think if it was'nt for the seahorse I'd say you could add something else.
Yes clowns are ok living singly but prolly happier in pairs dunno for sure they never told me lol. Ive kept them singly before and they seemed fine.

Thats just my 2 cents everyone has diff. opinions about it.
What we all do and what we know we should do are usually 2 different things lol.

kass

 

[DebsSisterFlo]

thanks! So far everyone is pretty peaceful. I've given up on "feeding" the seahorse. I tried for several weeks to get them to eat frozen and they flat out refused it. I was new and didn't think at the time to ask to see them eat before I bought... live and learn (thanks for all your "help" Jeff). So I buy pods and live mysid periodically so that Lucy has something to hunt. I've had her since march but she's anything but fat. What do you do? I'll keep her as long as I can, but I've kept fish for so long now, freshwater, that I do realize that eventually they die, and I'm sad for a bit, and then I get over it and look for something new.

I will not be adding anything else to this tank, it seems pretty stable now and I'd like to keep it that way.

 

[Limpit]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8002911#post8002911 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DebsSisterFlo

I will not be adding anything else to this tank, it seems pretty stable now and I'd like to keep it that way.

WOW, someone in this hobby that knows when to say when!:lol:

I think that that is a very smart thing to do. While a 38 is not a tiny tank it is not that big either. I have read what people do in a 29 gallon tank and it kept the livestock alive but at what stress to the inhabitants?

There are a ton of fish I would like to have but without having 100 tanks in the house (hmmm, sounds like a great idea) to house them correctly I chose to not buy them.

While I am far from being an expert on this hobby I do know that researching an animal prior to buying it is one of the most important things you can do, but that is just common sense.

I wish I could find this web page I read a while back. It listed a bunch of marine species that should not be kept in the home aquarium and the reasons why. It was very interesting and if I can find it again I will post it.

I have to go now, need to figure out how to acclimate the Lemon Shark I bought for my 120!

 

[nellie54914]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8003854#post8003854 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Limpit
I have to go now, need to figure out how to acclimate the Lemon Shark I bought for my 120! [/B]

ha ha Ron! Do you think it'll still fit once it's 8ft long?!

 

[DebsSisterFlo]

yeah! post pics of that!
Well, I have been researching stars and getting all the pros and cons of different ones and how they'd do in my tank. I'd love a linkia but I'm afraid to try one, read they would starve in my tank. So I finally decided on that harlequin serpent star and I really think it's the best choice... I want tuesday to get here, but not at the expense of the weekend!!!

 

[RCS]

What kind of seahorse is it? The larger ones can be fed live ghost shrimp once or twice a day. They're easy to find and make for more of a meal than mysids or pods do. Within the next month or two, I'm planning on getting a seahorse tank or two set up, so if you'd like to move her out of the tank, I'd be interested.

I would hesitate on adding both fish, as the maroons can be downright aggressive sometimes, and male Banggai cardinals are highly territorial. Not sure if you'd run into any problems with the PJs in there as well.

 

[DebsSisterFlo]

she's an H. Comes from Aquatic Imports. Ghost shrimp are too big for her, a pod fills her snout pretty good, I'm surprised she can get them through!

 

[RCS]

Wow...sos he's fairly tiny then? I would say (not including the curl) a 'horse would need to be a minimum of 5" tall to eat ghost shrimp. I guess you're pretty much stuck with what you've been doing then.

 

[DebsSisterFlo]

yep, she's a small one.

 

[RCS]

In that case, there's not really much to be done unless you want to get set up to breed something like mysids...which can be some work, but not to bad once it's going.