Hello
, well, here's my take on this:
Wouldn't bother with trigger to be honest, eel probably not, lion probably not, emperor (ehhh, I'd send him back to the store
IMO, you'll be sorry once/if it decides to take a liking to your corals down the road, if not immediately because you will be, I assume, adding the corals after him, and IME most fish look at anything entering the tank as a probable piece of food, and once coral is in there he's nearly impossible to get out
IMO), wouldn't mix two species of clown, although if you are dead set on doing so add larger perc or multiples
IMO. Anthias need to be fed multiple times a day in small amounts (planktonivores mainly, small group of three minimum one male two females). So far in your list I'd look at:
Purple Firefish (Maybe multiples, the red firefish are a bit sweeter IME, and look cute in groups of 3-5)
Sohol/Sailfin combo or Sohol/anyothergenus combo, added at the same time.
Anthias (if you're up to putting in the effort)
Maroon/significantly larger perc and/or multiple percs to disperse aggression.
The only reason I'd look away from the angels, triggers, eels, are that they really make keeping a reef tank a pain in the neck in general.
Triggers often make snack of mobile invertebrates, eels do the same and as they get bigger knock things over, lionfish will attempt to eat anything that will fit in their mouths (shrimp being a favorite morsel).
If you want a reef that does not include shrimps etc, you could go that aggressive-reef route, just try to include larger fish that the lionfish won't look at as a snack item. Larger wrasses such as coris etc do not eat coral, but are not considered "Reef" safe due to their shrimp/crab/snail eating habits. Maybe select larger tangs(ones that won't fit in the lionfish's mouth, double the size of his mouth if you've ever seen it open just to be safe!), you could probably even get away with three of them if you did something like a kole tang first, then add a sohal and a zebrasomas type at the same time. And I'd try to cover up your tank as best as possible-- having open sides really limits your selection of fish, many wrasses will jump, and fish that don't seem likely jumpers will do it at times.
So bottom line:
If you want shrimps,
don't pick large wrasses, triggers, eels, lionfish.
If you don't care about shrimps, do larger tangs, larger fish, triggers, eels, whatever it was you wanted in an aggressive tank, just double check coral safeness.
HTH and good luck!
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