90 gal stocking suggestions

[jgsensor]

I have a 90 gal reef that I am looking for stocking suggestions. I currently have:

2 Percs
1 Flame Hawk
1 Dragon Goby
1 Yellow Clown Goby
1 Lawnmower Blenny
1 Unidentified Damsel (mostly black with yellow tail and yellow strip on rear of dorsal fin. Can not find an id. Closes I came was a Regal damsel, but there is no white spot on the dorsal)

2 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Bristlestar
1 Sand sifting star
Various snails
Various mushroom corals
Montepora Cap
Small frag of Zoes
1 Stag Coral

I was thinking of adding some Blue Reef Chromis and maybe an Angel, foxface or maybe a tang. Still working on the corals, but any suggestions on Fish? Tank has been running for about a year now.

[jgsensor]

Nobody has any suggestions?

[Jerry W]

A foxface would be a great addition. Angels are largely hit or miss unless you go with one of the genicanthus species that are reef safe. If the foxface is not to your liking, a kole tang would be a good substitution.

[jgsensor]

Thamks for the suggestion. I have a foxface in my 180 reef and love him. He's a model citizen and great for the algae control. i was leaning between the foxface or a purple tang. I will have to look at the Kole, don't know much about them. Thanks again.

[oreocookie713]

Kole tang are active swimmer and will eat algae with gusto

[Tarasco1]

Cardinals, fairy and flasher wrasses, neon gobies would all work well.

[ChaosReefer]

the hawk might be an issue if the fish are small enough to fit into its mouth, and it has a big mouth...

[jgsensor]

I think I am going to go with a purple tang and some blue reef chromis. I really like the fox face, but I already have one in my 180 reef. The chromis will give the mid water some activity and the tang will diffently keep the algae down. I like the canary wrasse and was considering one for either this tank or my 180, but I am still a bit leary of wrasses. I have heard some horror stories about them. I will have to research them some more. Thanks again for all the suggestions.

[Harville]

check out a four line or six line wrasse...they are very cool and don't seem to bother much of anything.

A Flame Angel might look nice in your tank ,too. But, they are more hit and miss with bothering stuff

[CrazyLionfish]

six-lines can be very very aggresive toward fish much bigger than it.

[jgsensor]

Thanks for all the suggestions, but this post is a bit old an dnow is obsolete. Since this was posted there has been a major change. The wife needed the space were the 90 gal was sitting so unfortunately I had to get rid of it and my 180 gal and combine them into a mere 375 gal(96x30x30). Some how I will just have to make do. This all happened at the end of April of this year. So now my current set up is a 375gal acrylic tank by Advanced Aqua tanks with an oak stand and canopy. I run 4x250w metal halides with 10k Ushio bulbs, 4x96w PC Ultra Atinics, 3 moonlights, a CPR CY294 with two additional sumps(one which was turned into a refugium, but is a work in progress), 2x6000 Tunze streams with a 7095 controller, 2x26HF and 2x20HF Rios for returns, a MRC CR2 calcuim reactor with Pinpoint controller, and a 1/2HP Pacific Coast Chiller.

Live Stock:
1 Fox Face
1 Naso Tang
1 Purple Tang
1 Yellow Tang
1 Kole Tang
1 Indian Mimic Tang
1 Flame Angel
1 Copperband Butterfly
1 Flame Hawk
2 Brown Bar Gobies
1 Regal Damsel
1 Fasle Clown
2 False Black Clowns
1 humbug damsel
1 Yellow tail Damsel
2 Blue Reef Chromis
2 Green chromis
1 Royal gamma
2 Blueline Cleaner wrasses
1 Cleaner Shrimp
2 Pencil Urchins
1 Crocea Clam
1 sand sifting star
1 Tigerband brittle star
1 Horseshoe crab (don't blame me for this one, talk to the wife)
?? turbo and reef snails, Queen and fighting conches
?? Reef crabs
1 Feather duster
2 Torch corals
4 Monti caps
1 sm birds nest
1 yellow porites
1 green slimer
1 sm horn coral
2 open brain corals
1 favia coral
1 lg mushroom leather
1 finger leather
2 colonies of purple zoes
?? various mushroom corals
3 RBTAs
2 BTAs

Unfortunately, I recently have had an outbreak of aptasia that I seem to be losing ground too. Also have had a ever continuing battle with colonial hydriods that has been whipping on me. So I am thinking about removing a large portion of rock and replacing it, kill off the old rock, reseed it and place it back into the tank. Not something I am looking forward to doing, but i am growing ever tired of fighting the hydriods and the aptasia. Besides it is a bit hard to reach all the aptasia in this tank and the copperband is eather not eating enough of them or just can't keep up either. So I think this is he route I am going to have to take.

Thanks again for all the suggestions and with this tanks my stocking options where much wider. howevver I am always open to suggestions, helpful hints, or just better ways of doing something.

[karid]

I don't know how to get rid of the hydroids, but you could try some peppermint shrimp for the aptasia, if you haven't already. I had a HUGE outbreak that I just couldn't control - nothing worked to get rid of them and every rock in the tank (90g) had one, two, or more - and some were really huge. I was giving up. I decided last bet to get some peppermint shrimp from our LFS (I heard they might not work, so didn't try before).

I got two small (like 1" to 1.5") shrimp and put them in. The next day, the rock I put them on was missing it's colony of 8 small aptasias. Within a week and a half, all the aptasia was gone from the tank. I was so surprised. I didn't think such small little shrimp would even be able to tackle some of the bigger aptasias we had and especially not be able to clean out the volume of aptasia we had in such a short time. I expected to have to wait for the shrimp to get bigger before I saw any change in aptasia volume in the tank. But nope! I was so happy. It's been a few months now and I haven't seen a one.

I also heard they might not get along with cleaner shrimp - but I have 2 cleaners and they are so much bigger than these guys - the peppermints just stay in a rock all day. Anyway, at $6 each, they were great (you have to get the Lysmata wurdemanni ones though).

[jgsensor]

I have used peppermint shrimp in the past to control the aptasia and they work great. I had put 4 in my current tank a few months back to try and rid the aptasia, but my flame hawk thought they made great little snacks and they didn't last long.

[karid]

Ah yes, I didn't see you had a flame hawk. That would be a problem with the shrimp!

[stellablu]

What about a Mimic Eibli Tang?

[stellablu]

Nevermind, he'd probably eat your shrimp. He goes after the ghost that I feed my wrasses and lionfish.

[jgsensor]

I have one already, they are also called Indian mimic tang. I love him, very nice looking fish and eats like crazy. i have only had him now for about 4 months, so he is still young. Can't wait to see what he grows into.

[stellablu]

Is yours still yellow, or has he started turning?

Mine is still bright yellow, but one of equal size at a LFS is already adult coloration...

[jgsensor]

He is still the juvenille coloration. Hes's about 4 inches or so now and still has the elibi colors. Active little guy. I have seen a couple adult color variations so I am curious to see how mine turns out. All the ones I've seen are mainly blackish in color, but some have a bright yellow tail with streamers.

[jgsensor]

Here's a pick of my mimic with a few of his friends. It's about a month old and not the greatest pic of the mimic, but that is one of the best I have of him.