Comments Please - Balancing Fish & Corals... Is This a Good Start?

[dmiannay]

Cathy (cmiannay) and I are nearing the culmination of several months of research... the tank and stand will be arriving this week and we'll be on our way :D As a final sanity check on our stocking plans, we wanted to get some opinions (and this is surely the place ;) ) on our list of fish. Things to consider when looking at this list is our desire to have a balanced environment... an excellent home for fish, lps/sps and clams. Too many fish and the load may be too high for the corals/clams.

The List:

2 Ocillarus Clowns
2 Banggai Cardinals
5 Bicolor Anthias
1 Flame Angel
1 Royal Gramma
1 Yellow Longnose Butterfly
1 Regal Blue Tang
1 Sailfin Tang

Considering our tank setup and specs (see my signature line) and that we'll be very consciencious about our tank's water quality (weekly water changes and top-offs with RO/DI water), will this list of fish (when we finally have them all in about 6 months or so) be a potential problem or are we likely to be just fine?

TIA for your responses!

[kmk2307]

dmiannay,

What are the dimensions of the tank? How much live rock are you going to have? How much (if any) sand / substrate are you going to have?

The flame angel and yellow longnose butterfly are a gamble as to whether or not they will eat corals or other invertebrates. Banggai cardinals are picky eaters. It is possible you will get some that will only accept live foods. Also, if you end up with two Banggais of the same sex, as they mature they may fight and kill each other. If you get three you will likely have two pair up and then an "odd man out" whom the pair will likely try to kill. I would wait on them until you have an established 'pod population. I am not much of an anthias expert but I know some species are very sensitive which makes them poor aquarium choices.

HTH & GL,
Kevin

[technoshaman]

Looks decent. I don't know as much about the longnose butterfly - I know there are two very closely related species one more 'reef safe' than the other. For reference my copperband butterfly will nip at clam mantles and at open brains sometimes - usually he is eating mucus from the surface/mouth area and they are ok. The flame angel will be another wildcard with your corals so choose carefully. Maybe take a few fish out and get a nice Genicanthus species angel instead.


I think it would work fine depending on your filtration/skimming and supplemental nutrient export/removal methods (I have a large macro algae refugium on my tank). For reference I have this in my 215 gallon

1 Regal Tang
1 Foxface Rabbitfish
1 Copperband Butterfly
1 Sailfin Tang
1 Sailfin Blenny
1 Rainford Goby
2 Black Ocellaris Clowns
1 Sri Lanka Dottyback
1 Yellow Watchman Goby
2 Neon Gobies
2 Barnacle Blennies (see them about twice a month - tiny)

I consider my tank about at capacity and will be removing the dottyback if I can catch him (I forgot about the chalk basslet living in the overflow he keeps chasing mercilessly). I love fish but if you want healthy corals , especially SPS it's going to be harder to manage with a larger fishload.

[dmiannay]

Originally posted by kmk2307
What are the dimensions of the tank? How much live rock are you going to have? How much (if any) sand / substrate are you going to have?



The 135 is 72 x 18 x 24. We'll have about 100 pounds of LR, 4" deep DSB (Southdown seeded with LS). We'll also have a part of our 50 gal sump set aside as a refugium (about 10 gal) for growing algae.

[dmiannay]

I was hoping for a few more comments :confused:

You know, I have a long way to go to catch up to Cathy's thread "My LFS owner says all experts ditching DSBs..." :( That particular thread is now up to 454 responses 11556 views :eek2: What do I have to do to get that type of response? :)

Anyway, thanks to those who responded. We'll likey be OK as long as we stay on top of water changes, etc.

Go Cathy :mixed:

[technoshaman]

No offense to you I think - board is slow on a weekend. Bump it again tomorrow about 10 am and see what response you get :)

Again I think your stock list looks fine except eh butterfly and dwarf angel are a wildcard.

[isom]

I agree with kmk2307... you may have trouble w/ the flame and the longnose. It depends on what you want to keep as far as corals. If you are looking to keep LPS or clams these two might not be good choices.

Otherwise the list looks good. The only thing I would caution you on would be your timing. You mentioned that you wanted to have all the fish w/in 6 months...this seems way too soon to me. You need to let things progress SLOWLY. Let the tank cycle, let the sandbed begin to mature, let the pod population develop, etc... IMO you should add the fish slowly, as in two or three in six months, especially w/ a new setup. Patience is definitely the key here. If you add too many fish too quickly you will have trouble w/ nutrients and algae.

[dmiannay]

Originally posted by isom
IMO you should add the fish slowly, as in two or three in six months, especially w/ a new setup. Patience is definitely the key here. If you add too many fish too quickly you will have trouble w/ nutrients and algae.

Isom,

I couldn't agree with you more. What I meant to say was that we wouldn't add any livestock till after a full cycle (probably 6-8 weeks since we are starting with essentially uncured LR). Then, it might take 6 months to introduce all the fish... but maybe that's too agressive. Thanks for the advice. The one thing we are trying very hard NOT to do is mess up due to impatience :(

[isom]

Honestly, I wouldn't try to introduce that many fish that quickly. Others might argue differently. This is just my opinion.
:D

Fourteen fish will definitely max out the bio-load in a 135. A tank that is only 6mo old is not mature enough to handle this much of a load. At six months you WILL be dealing with algae and fine tuning water chemistry with additives, etc... Also, your refugium will just be getting started. Seriously, I would urge you to go slow, especially w/ your first tank. If you try to introduce that much of a load that quickly you will run into issues

[cmiannay]

Thanks for the advice, we are fine with being more patient when it comes time to add fish.

Since the LN Butterfly is a gamble, what would you suggest instead for that "splash of yellow" color?

[MiddletonMark]

For a `splash of yellow' I REALLY like my Midas Blenny. Really personable little guy ... comes to check me out when I go by the tank.

Of course, 6 weeks of QT, checking in the dark on levels and only with lights to feed may have gotten him expecting food every time I come around. But a great, colorful fish. Kind of a gold/pinkish color, big blue eyes.

Just my 2 cents. Not sure how he'd deal with the other fish in there, and not a `constantly swimming' fish.

Maybe a yellow coris wrasse instead?

[cmiannay]

Thx Middleton (fellow designer ;) ) That's a possibilty...

Anybody else? I'm looking for mostly to solid yellow, preferably 5+ inches.