fish or no fish

[bagelgeek]

I is OBV that I am new to this. I have a 175 gal tank w/ approx 200# live rock.. Everything is in balance. Only the salt is at at1.020. I would like to have fish but i would like a live reef. I was told that having a live reef would prevent me from haveing many fish. Have 4 bl damsels, a perc, scat and 2 mono's which will be re-locating to a freshwter tank. Have a nice 2 color frogspawn and another fuzzy anemone whicH i forgot its name. I am building up the reef cleaner items, such as snails..Any suggestions or comments on why I cannot have fish with live reef?

[Avi]

Well, there is no reason why you can't have fish with a live reef....BUT....you do have to be discerning as to which fish you can keep in a reef because there are fish that will eat coral and others that would eat small snails and hermit crabs. So, the idea is to keep ONLY "reef-safe" fish that will not do harm to any of the invertebrates that you would keep in a reef. You have to do some investigation before you add any fish to your reef to first be certain that it is a "reef-safe" fish. It's somewhat limiting, but there are many beautiful fish that will be compitable with a reef. Some good choices, IMO, would be a Royal Gramma, any of the wrasses in the Fairy Wrasse or Flasher Wrasse families, some Dottybacks, and many others.

[bagelgeek]

any good books to suggest reef safe fish...or posting areas?

[Kryptikhan]

i use marine fishes. by scott michael.

[sirgeez]

Conscientious Marine Aquarist
http://www.amazon.com/Conscientious-.../dp/1890087025

[MTB]

Marine Fishes is a good book to start with. I believe Live Aquaria also has a compatibility list on their site. Or they have a reef safe fish section atleast.

[moparcolt]

what fish would eat snails and hermit crabs? Just curious because I seem to loose alot of them

[MTB]

Moparcolt, perhaps you could list your fish to help narrow it down?

[Blown 346]

Originally posted by bagelgeek
I is OBV that I am new to this. I have a 175 gal tank w/ approx 200# live rock.. Everything is in balance. Only the salt is at at1.020. I would like to have fish but i would like a live reef. I was told that having a live reef would prevent me from haveing many fish. Have 4 bl damsels, a perc, scat and 2 mono's which will be re-locating to a freshwter tank. Have a nice 2 color frogspawn and another fuzzy anemone whicH i forgot its name. I am building up the reef cleaner items, such as snails..Any suggestions or comments on why I cannot have fish with live reef?

I owuld raise the salinity slowly to 1.025 over a day or two so you dont shock the system. Having a reef wont prevent from having fish, like said above, it will prevent you from certain kinds of fish. Also when choosing fish make sure you dont overcrowd them. For each inch of fish you should provide 3 to 5 gallobns of water for them to grow into. Ex. 4 inch fish should have about 20 gallons of water to itself.

For a reef tank I would look into more passive fish.

[moparcolt]

I only have three right now a coral beauty a percula clown and a luthers goby who I suspect. There is also this pink crab I have seen in the tank he must have tagged along on a rock .