Hey, everybody, thanks in advance for all help.
I just returned an arc-eye hawkfish to the LFS for a little store credit because I want to build a full reef tank and he...well he eats anything with a tasty, crunchy exoskeleton. So I have looked at a few fish as a replacement.
It is a 40 gallon breeder tank with two aqueon powerheads running about 1000 g/h, with 30 lbs of live rock and about 25 lbs of aragonite sand. No sump yet, but the tank is drilled, so my filtration is the live rock and an odyssea 75 protein skimmer. The fish I am keeping are two ocellaris clowns, captive-bred, and a six line wrasse. The clean up crew is 10 astras, 8 ceriths, a serpent star, and a couple hermit crabs and bumblee snails with the plain to have about 5 of each. The fish I have considered so far include the following:
1. Algae Blenny - I had a massive algae explosion when I first started the tank that has gotten substantially better, but there's still way too much hair algae. I just boosted the CUC to help, but I also really like the algae blenny's color pattern. So I'm not just using the fish for a tool if I get one.
2. Shrimp Goby - Once I get some invertebrates, this seems like an obvious choice. I really like the idea of seeing the Pistol Shrimp/Goby symbiotic relationship in my own tank. The problem is that my sandbed is, on average, only 2 inches deep. I would need to add another 20-30 lbs of sand to have numbers where I think they could burrow and thrive together.
3. Royal Gramma - This thing looks awesome, it's fairly hardy, and I have 30 lbs of live rock with plenty of crevices for it to hide. Not much more to it.
4. Orange spotted filefish - Now here is the big one. I just saw three of these today at the LFS. Now I have seen one would not outgrow the tank, nor would it have an issue with the tankmates.
The filefish main issue I have seen is feeding. But this is an LFS I trust, and I was told all three had been eating prepared foods. Still, I would like to see that happen before I commit the money to one. I do see that they eat some SPS coral, but all I have in the tank are polyps and one LPS in a green trumpet coral.
I just returned an arc-eye hawkfish to the LFS for a little store credit because I want to build a full reef tank and he...well he eats anything with a tasty, crunchy exoskeleton. So I have looked at a few fish as a replacement.
It is a 40 gallon breeder tank with two aqueon powerheads running about 1000 g/h, with 30 lbs of live rock and about 25 lbs of aragonite sand. No sump yet, but the tank is drilled, so my filtration is the live rock and an odyssea 75 protein skimmer. The fish I am keeping are two ocellaris clowns, captive-bred, and a six line wrasse. The clean up crew is 10 astras, 8 ceriths, a serpent star, and a couple hermit crabs and bumblee snails with the plain to have about 5 of each. The fish I have considered so far include the following:
1. Algae Blenny - I had a massive algae explosion when I first started the tank that has gotten substantially better, but there's still way too much hair algae. I just boosted the CUC to help, but I also really like the algae blenny's color pattern. So I'm not just using the fish for a tool if I get one.
2. Shrimp Goby - Once I get some invertebrates, this seems like an obvious choice. I really like the idea of seeing the Pistol Shrimp/Goby symbiotic relationship in my own tank. The problem is that my sandbed is, on average, only 2 inches deep. I would need to add another 20-30 lbs of sand to have numbers where I think they could burrow and thrive together.
3. Royal Gramma - This thing looks awesome, it's fairly hardy, and I have 30 lbs of live rock with plenty of crevices for it to hide. Not much more to it.
4. Orange spotted filefish - Now here is the big one. I just saw three of these today at the LFS. Now I have seen one would not outgrow the tank, nor would it have an issue with the tankmates.
The filefish main issue I have seen is feeding. But this is an LFS I trust, and I was told all three had been eating prepared foods. Still, I would like to see that happen before I commit the money to one. I do see that they eat some SPS coral, but all I have in the tank are polyps and one LPS in a green trumpet coral.