fish suggestions for newly established 125gal

[simn22]

first off, thank you all for contributing great information. this is my first saltwater tank and the information on this forum got me through setting up the tank and the toughest part (cycling)

It's been about 3 months now since everything stabilized. My next quest is to add larger fish.

currently i have about ~20
15- 1-2" various damsels
1- 2-3" sailfin tang
1- 2" yellow tang
2- 1" "tank-bred" perculas
2- 1" cardinals

there is currently no coral, however I would like to add some in the future. I have about 100lbs of live rock in there with plenty of hiding spaces.

what is a compatible medium sized fish (3-4") to look for? im looking for very colorful, non agressive, and slow swimming larger fish. Im thinking about an angel, but i know there are reef cautions. i really like butterfly fish, but know they arent reed compatible either...

heres a quick clip of my tank (before i got rid of the bully trigger)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbZDuaDR870

[peacock]

queen angels r a stunning looking but do get very big.
blueface angel again gets big

if u r thinking bout having corals in i would be carefull what fish u go for has some angels and butterfly fish will eats corals

[Ninong]

Wow! You really like damsels!

I wouldn't put any of the large angelfish in your 125-gallon reef aquarium. It's a little on the small side and almost all of them are definitely not reef-aquarium safe.

If you want an angelfish, I would suggest you consider one in the Genicanthus species. I like G. bellus myself. Just get one female. I think the females are nicer looking than the males. It may or may not change sex later on.

I really like the dwarf angelfish, such as Centropyge loriculus and C. bispinosa. I've kept both of those without problems in a 120-gallon reef aquarium but they're risky. It all depends on your tolerance for risk.

Butterflyfishes are almost all out of the question for a variety of reasons; however, you might want to consider a copperbanded butterflyfish (Chelmon rostratus). I really like those and a 125-gallon might be just barely large enough. These are difficult because so many of them don't survive more than a few months in captivity. Never buy one of these unless you see it eating at the store.

Don't get any more tangs. You are tanged out. Your tank is adequate for a yellow tang but, IMO, it's too small for that sailfin tang. I'm assuming that your tank is 6-ft long and, if so, that will help. In any case, you really don't need any more tangs.

My other observation is that you certainly have a lot of fish for an aquarium that is only three months old. You might want to slow down a little. I wouldn't add any angelfish or any butterflyfish to a tank that is less than six months old.

Good luck.

[simn22]

Wow! You really like damsels!
Good luck.

Hello Ninong,

Thanks for the reply, your responses have been very helpful throughout the forum.

I started with damsels to cycle the tank, and the lfs had a good variety of them (at a good price too!). So every few weeks i just added a few more to the diversity, but I agree there are too many now. and there wont be any more tangs cause of future space and aggression.

I'll slow down the purchases to start concentrating on the details of the tank such as nutrients/water quality.

my last and most recent purchase was 2 more tank bred perculas. they are all juvenile about the same size ~1". would there be any unforeseen problems in the future?

[Ninong]

How many perculas do you have in total? If you have two, no problem. if you have four, that's something I wouldn't recommend for an 80-gallon tank.

[simn22]

There are 4 total in a 125 gallon tank. all are the same size and and the pairs were introduced into the tank a few days from each other

this might have mislead me... YouTube - Clownfish
a ball of clown fish

[Ninong]

I don't know where I got the idea that it was an 80-gallon tank. Anyway, I still wouldn't recommend four perculas for a 125-gallon tank. Maybe if it were a much larger tank but not a 125-gallon tank. I doubt that you will end up with more than one sexually mature female and one sexually mature male. The other two will be dominated and not allowed to mature sexually.

Keep your eye on them over the next few months. The female will be the one that gets the most to eat. The reason she gets the most to eat is because she is the most aggressive. By getting the most to eat, she will become larger than the others and progress through the sexual maturation process first. She will become a male before the others and then become the first female of the group. The second place finisher will be the male. The other two will remain sexually immature as long as they are in close proximity to the dominant pair.

Update us on your progress. It will be interesting to see if you manage to get two pairs out of this but I doubt it.

[simn22]

I'll definitely keep you guys posted as this my first "experiment"

another note, i have started another 30gal to use as a hospital in case something happens. If i use some current damsels to cycle the tank, would there be any problem due to dominance re-introducing them into the main tank at a later time? i know the damsels will become more aggressive as they grow.

maybe cycle with the largest damsel?

[Ninong]

Lee has a nice, lengthy post offering advice on setting up a QT/hospital tank. You don't really need to use damsels to cycle it.

I think you need to think about your damsel situation. Do you really want to keep that many damsels or not? If not, then you should consider doing something now rather than later. You will have a harder time catching them later.

[simn22]

Well unfortunately i won't be able to report back on the future of the 4 clowns...one died this morning.

However, I found the activity of the other 3 rather unusual. They were swimming on top of the dead one and they kept nudging it, almost as if they wanted it to swim again.

are clownfish known to be "emotionally" attached to each other?

i took a video here YouTube - Nemo's best friends

[Jai1985]

my best guess is they saw it as food

[simn22]

i would have thought that too, but if you watch closely, they werent eating the one that died. they were trying to swim under it. anyway, it was quite interesting to see

[simn22]

Hello everyone. It has been over 6 months now since my last post.
Im here to report back on the condition of my tank. Almost all the advice given on this forum has come true and it has been very useful.

The 3 clown fish are still in the tank, 2 have matured and 1 is still smaller in size and is being picked on. Neither one has ever hosted an anemome, they are tank raised clowns. I have since tried several BTAs since.

The damsels as mentioned by Ninong have grown and become more aggressive toward each other. I will have to try to catch them and remove them. They are very hardy and eat a lot.

The Yellow tang and Sailfin tang are doing very well together.

I have also added a few soft corals over the past months that are doing well.
Others not doing so well- purple kenya tree, mushrooms, orange carnation tree

A few mistakes made over the past months. I had a long tentacle plate coral that one day started to decline in health, gradually all it's tissue fell off and it died. I should have changed the water afterwards, because the plate was fairly large (5"). It's death must have stressed the tank because a peppermint shrimp also died and I saw ich on the yellow sailfin.

I also tired a maxima clam, it was doing great on the live rock but i decided to move it to the sandbed. This must have stressed it, because the nassarius snails started eating it! One day it was alive the next day it was dead, that was very upsetting.

[Jessie Nicoletti]

You may want to try a flame angel or coral beauty always my fav angels cause they stay small ( avoid yellow colored fish they probarly will not get along well with the yellow tang) damsels tend to be semi to highly agressive as they grow exspecialy the sergent majors and dascalys types i would try to get rid of about half or all however a shool of chromis is always a pretty sight and tend to be alot more peacefull then other types another pretty fish is the orchid dottyback with has a mixed reputation i find them relativly peacefull but some claim them not to be safe with shrimp ect imho the larger the tank the less likely the fish will catch the shrimp/crabs and get a long tentacle anenome for the clowns

[simn22]

Yes thanks Jessie, i've had my eye on the flaming angel for some time now. it will be my next addition to the tank

[Jessie Nicoletti]

Make sure you observe the fish in the lfs store over a week and make sure it eats. the flame angel can be a very selective eater and stressing i personaly had 2 before that just didnt live that long ( longest one was 3 months) the one i have now is very health and eats waht i feed.

btw i feed mysid, brine 2x a day and krill 1x a day and silversides every other day unless the eel comes out then i make sure i defrost him 1 or 2. i like to feed all frozen fish food as its healthyer then flakes with i feed maybe about every 3 days in place of frozen in the morning and pellets decompose in the tank and can give ya some nasty problems. i feed enough for my corals fish and inverts anything that goes on the bottom of the tank is usally taken by the hermits to eat however with less fish or inverts you probarly dont have to feed as much

[reeferbill]

Hi simn22; I would trap the damsels with a liter soda bottle ,cut a hole big enough for them to swim through in the top and poke a hole in the top edge for a piece of fish line add a thawed cube of frozen food and when a damsel swims in pull the bottle up to the top and trade them in for store credit at your LFS. Concentrate on some easy corals until you get your damsel population under controll,instead of them a small group of anthias or blue chromis will make a stunning display. Happy Reefing!!!!!!!!!