Is this a possible/good combination of fish?

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Aquarium Advice Regular
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Sep 17, 2009
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I am trying to make my 36 gal bowfront a reef tank.

Is this a possible/good combination of fish?

2 clownfish

1 blue or yellow tang

1. fire goby


How many fish can I put into a 36 gallon, or would I be maxing it out already with the ones I posted?
 
It`s hard to say how many because different fish have different bioloads. One thing for sure is that you wont be able to have a tang in that size tank. A yellow tang would have to have at least a 55 and the hippo tang at least a 75. But there are still many fish that would fit in that tank and that would look nice also.
 
you could run the clowns and firefish with no problem as i have a mere 10G(give or take) biocube 14 and have two small oscellaris clowns and a firefish goby that i healed, and my levels are fine

as for the tangs they require much more space and care than a 36 can provide as stated above
 
If your looking for the yellow appeal of the tank, try a lemonpeel angel. They have the striking look of the yellow tang, but add a hint of blue (around the eye and anal fin (depending on gender)) and there is your yellow tang.

Plus they'll fit in your 36g tank. Only grow to around 3-4".
 
if I get a yellow baby tang, wouldn't it be fine for a year or so? it gets big through it whole lifetime, which is what like 8-10 years or something?

I see alot of people even with the hippo blue tangs in small tanks and they do fine.
 
Not in that size tank. Tangs need plenty of swimming room. And yes you might see some of your friends have it but I`ll bet not for a long sustainable time. When you put them in too small of tanks their immune system suffers and the threat of parasites ans disease is hastened. Seen it many a time.
 
Tangs need lots of swimming room. I have a 6' long 125 and wish I had a longer tank. I have an adult (5 yrs) Sailfin tang, a young (1 yr) Blue Hippo and a juvi (6 mth) YT in my tank. Even the YT dashes across the length of the tank in a blink. They usually all play nice together, but the SF occasionaly shows it's dominance and back one of the others into a corner or behind the rocks. Easy to see why they are called surgeon fish ;)
 
I think what also matters is that you want a reef tank. That seems to lower the fish you can have. You might be fine as far as bioload and fish happiness goes, but the excess nutrients from feeding all those fish is going to drive you crazy with dealing with algae. The neater corals will not tolerate phosphates and nitrates at all. Youll wind up with big balls of chaeto, GFO running daily, and constant skimming to combat the nutrients and nuissance algae that will be loving all the feeding/pooping + light. In the meantime, your corals will hate you if they start getting algae on them.

I think our member, Zero, got the right idea with his 25g tank. He is only adding one or two small fish such as gobys since he wants to go all out with corals. Wish I would have understood all that before I committed to clowns...Its tough, but you got to think long term goals when making choices.

Matt
 
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