cant decide,need suggestions

[reefbound]

If you had these inhabitants in your tank what would you add... doesnt just have to be a fish...tank has been up since September 05... with one casualty two months ago...so far...Need suggestions please...I have been looking at urchins,bumblebee snails,firefish,and so on...


Sixline wrasse
Ocellaris Clown
Flame Angel
Royal Gramma
Blue Mandarin
Green bubble tip
1 Skunk shrimp
1 Peppermint shrimp
about 15 hermit's and 15 adult snails
Devils hand
some browm mushrooms
a small Acropora
Sea fan
green star polyps

The Tank:
75 gallon
90 lbs liverock

 

[Reese]

Yellow tang.

 

[zuzecawi]

Do you have macro in your tank? What type substrate? I wouldn't go with the yellow tang unless you've got a good source of live macro, nori and frozen just doesn't cut it for tangs. They can subsist, but that's like asking a person to live off of MRE's and beef jerky. I'd suggest more peppermints, they really like to be in a community, and they're really fun to watch when you've got six or so dancing in a cave. Bumblebee snails are excellent as well, a nice splash of color, and very hardy. Sally lightfoot crabs are fun, mine leave my mandarin alone, although like any crab, they can get pinchy if they're hungry. How long have you had the mandarin? Kinda risky, having that mandarin and the sixline together in a small tank, but it's doable with a lot of live rock and a good pod pop. Only 90lbs of rock though, is pushing it IMO. I take it your sea fan is a photosynthetic type? Seems like you have enough fish for a tank that's not even a year old, that's moving pretty quick on the stocking. I'd sink the money into more live rock and some inverts. Nassarius snails are a must have as well. Might consider some serpent stars. Don't do the urchin thing unless you get more live rock and have a good supply of microalgae. Urchins really can backfire on you, not many are reef safe, and even the reef safe ones eat corralline algae and knock things down. Not to mention, some kinds have very potent venom. Your list of cleaner critters is really skimpy, beef that up before you add any more flashy bio-load. Really, for long term care of that madarine, you should be running around 125-200lbs live rock. It's better to have MORE than not enough, especially if you don't have the bonus of a fuge. Just my two cents.

 

[reefbound]

Do you have macro in your tank? What type substrate? I wouldn't go with the yellow tang unless you've got a good source of live macro, nori and frozen just doesn't cut it for tangs. They can subsist, but that's like asking a person to live off of MRE's and beef jerky. I'd suggest more peppermints, they really like to be in a community, and they're really fun to watch when you've got six or so dancing in a cave. Bumblebee snails are excellent as well, a nice splash of color, and very hardy. Sally lightfoot crabs are fun, mine leave my mandarin alone, although like any crab, they can get pinchy if they're hungry. How long have you had the mandarin? Kinda risky, having that mandarin and the sixline together in a small tank, but it's doable with a lot of live rock and a good pod pop. Only 90lbs of rock though, is pushing it IMO. I take it your sea fan is a photosynthetic type? Seems like you have enough fish for a tank that's not even a year old, that's moving pretty quick on the stocking. I'd sink the money into more live rock and some inverts. Nassarius snails are a must have as well. Might consider some serpent stars. Don't do the urchin thing unless you get more live rock and have a good supply of microalgae. Urchins really can backfire on you, not many are reef safe, and even the reef safe ones eat corralline algae and knock things down. Not to mention, some kinds have very potent venom. Your list of cleaner critters is really skimpy, beef that up before you add any more flashy bio-load. Really, for long term care of that madarine, you should be running around 125-200lbs live rock. It's better to have MORE than not enough, especially if you don't have the bonus of a fuge. Just my two cents.

lets see where to start...im not really into tangs just not for me my kids dont want one eighter... For substrate I have 40lbs of aragonite the hermits and nerite snails seem to like it. Whats wrong with MRE'S and beef jerky...to be single again... . I have 15 (5certh,5 BBee,5 nass)more snails on the way to help out. The Mandarin has been with us for two months now and seems ok. I do have a HOB refuge with three different macros growing(grape,cheato,and some type of broad leaf) 3lbs rubble and aragonite sub, and pods everywhere including the separate 10 gallon pod propagation tank...
As for the Sixline he eats EVERYTHING I put in the tank be it flake,pellet,mysis,or a homemade meat/veggie mix I get at a LFS around here.As for being a young tank...yes it is but I really dont think its to fast,I didnt add all these fish overnite all went to QT first exept the Mandarin.Since this has been up and running all has been normal except for a high calcium level a few months back so I think all will be well (runs off to check all levels)... jmtc...


ps...20 more lbs of lR on the way...

 

[zuzecawi]

That's cool, with the extra 20lbs and the hob fuge you should be pretty good to go. And as long as the six line keeps eating out of the water column your mandarin shouldn't be outcompeted. I still think that your bio-load is a little large/specialized for a six month old tank. It's not an attack, just an opinion. And everybody harps on the mandarin thing enough on here, so you're already more than aware that they eat thousands of pods and that pod populations rise and fall in dips that we really don't know the reasons for. Personally, I think that education and precaution can substitue for brute mass of rock and luck, but be prepared to make a pod order if you do have a crash on your population. There are several sites with bulk cultures available, and then there's Ocean Pods. With your substrate, there should be plenty of crevices for pods to hide. The reason I wanted to know what your substrate consisted of, was I was going to suggest a jaw fish. They're fun little critters, a lot of personality, and it might add a different level to your fauna. Not to make a pun. They do require a deep sand bed made of sugar sand mixed with rubble, shells, and aragonite chunks, but they're pretty neat creatures, and can even spawn in your aquarium. Many of the snails need replenishment often, another reason I like bumblebees, they last longer than the usual year long life span of most marine snails. I'd still add more inverts to your clean up crew before adding more fish. The old adage of one snail per gallon water isn't a rule of God but it isn't a bad guideline, either. Personally, I'd rather have more blue leggeds than snails, but I have some forty (give or take ten) bumble bees in my 58, + about 30 nassarius. Some of the bb's are around 3 years old by my reckoning. A couple serpent stars would be a nice addition, and unlike the bristle stars they rarely (never in my experience) take down shrimp or sleeping gobies. And they graze a lot more than sand sifting stars, so they don't necessarily require as mature of a sand bed, although they do a good job stirring up your substrate. And shrimp really do like being in groups, people don't often think of shrimp as being group animals, but most are. Even the commensal shrimps that live in anenomes are rarely found singly.

 

[reefbound]

First let me say I didnt take your post as an attack... . I was shocked when the Sixline started to eat the meat/veggie mixture I get from the LFS,so thats what he ate his entire 7week stay at the Hotel QT, needless to say I was quite happy about that.
About the Mandarin thing,yes everyone has their opinion including myself,but no matter what you say to people,they need to find out for themselves, its like a right of passage or somthing.me,im down there every four days dumping pods into the main to support the fuge and main. At night you should see the swarms buzzing up and down the glass. I probably will get rid of the pod propagation tank when this cycle crashes,although Ive been fortunate so far. I thought about fish like the Jawfish that burrow and got me to thinking about adding sand to what I have now(really like the black sand) I thought it might look good.
My tank has a very thick brace system (older 75e model) 2 inches around the bottom and my aragonite is below this level so you would not see the white until there was digging going on...unless I buy a new tank and start al over again...hmmmm

 

[zuzecawi]

My sixline was a friggin pig!!! It ate every thing that hit the water, including sugar ants. (The things we do when we're bored). I was always too nervous to have a mandarin with it though, because the sixline I had did a LOT of rock grazing. It used to play havoc with my spaghetti worms. Not to mention, IMO a 58 gal tank, no matter HOW much live rock is crammed into it, is just not enough room for a sixline and a mandarin. The only good thing about the sixline getting speared dead by the yellow devil tang was that it opened the path for the mandarin. I'm so paranoid about that little guy though, I watched it eat mysis at the LFS but it was incredibly skinny, and even though my tank, like yours, has swarms of pods (and I mean SWARMS) I'm still nervous. He's gained about half his weight back in the past three weeks, with no noticeable dent in the pod pop (I could swear they're actually breeding faster), which means going from straight skeletal to just having a mild line down his body, but I just am always worried I'll find him being shrimp bait. Generally I don't buy unhealthy fish, but after watching this guy deteriorate for two months I couldn't stand it anymore. Hopefully in the next setup, I'll be able to get a female. But first to see if this guy makes it past the six month mark. There are some great success stories out there of spotted mandarins spawning, the best web documented one I've found was notably this website: http://www.reefgarden.net/id24.html

My 58 is also a older thick braced model, I have a pretty shallow bed in it (2 inches) but the 135 will have a good 4-5 inch bed in places. The current tank is purely sugar sand, and it looks good, stays clean, but I just wouldn't want to put any burrowing creature in there. Too light in texture, and it blows around too much. The next tank will be a mix. I like the black sand too, saw it on liveaquaria.com, but I'm not sure if it doesn't contain silicate. Seems like it would have to, being most likely volcanic in origin. Then again, we have Mt. St. Helens black sand on our beaches here in Oregon, and it doesn't seem to bother our sand digging clams any. There's a lot of conflicting info about the whole silicate thing, and I really don't know if it's worth worrying about too much. I was thinking for my tank, which will have a few wide expanses of sand, about strewing the black sand across parts of the upper levels, much like the tidal zones we have here in Oregon around the Waldport-Florence stretch. And I think, after experimenting with all cc and all sugar sand, that I will definitely do a mix, with the chunkier stuff down first, and the sand on top. Seems "truer" to what I've seen in the ocean. Then again, I've never dived the Indo-Pacific, so my first hand experience with the mother of mothers is pretty limited.
And I've got to say... buying a new tank and starting over... is a very seductive idea!!! I know, I'm stuck in it!

 

[melosu58]

I agree with the tang. A yellow or kole tang would be a good addition. Yes you will have to put some seaweed selects or nori in there but what`s wrong with that. I suggest the tang.