Will These Fish Go Together?

[Rambo]

OK, 2moro im setting up my marine nano tank, its an interpet river-reef 50, capcity 94 litres, or 25 US gallons.

its going to be set up with a mix of fresh argonite and very well matured (2 year plus) substrate from my LFS, along with around 10kg of well matured live rock.

basically, once its cycled and everything, my final stocking ideal is a good clean up crew of several differnt snails (turbo, nassarius, astrea), red or blue legged hermits (anyone able to suggest one over the other?), a pair of cleaner shrimp and peppermint shrimp, maybe a mithrax crab if algae becomes a real issue.

Fish wise, and the main point of this post, i'd like to get:

a pair of clowns, probs true percs;
a firefish, either normal, purple or helfrich's, any recommendations?
and a goby/blenny, again any recommendations?


tank is, ideally, going to have a few tough soft corals, i.e. mushrooms and xenia, and be slowly built up over 6 months/ year


if anyone can spot any possible issues with this combination, can they let me know? any help will be greatly appreciated



technical info on tank:

TMC v2 nano skimmer spec. to 120 litres
x2 T5 lights, one standard, one blue
x2 powerheads, can turnover 10x + tank volume/hour

currently got ceramics, filter wool and carbon in filter, but looking to change it to live rock rubble in the near future

i think thats about it


if anyone has any advice or possible suggestions for species combo that they think would go well, i'd love to hear them, as i am extremely flexible abou what'd go in the tank, havin previously considered a fu manchu (put off by the feeding issues and survivability), a flasher wrasse (again feeding a possible issue), and several other species, so anmy help would b hugely appreciated

thanx in advance

 

[Lynden]

If I were you I might try get some fish besides the bog standards. But, to answer your question, yes those fish will get along. My favourite firefish has always been the red, because of the long dorsal filament. A flasher wrasse, by the way, would be easy to keep, but they can jump.

For an alternative tankmate I would recommend a filefish. These can be a bit tricky in a reef tank because some like to munch SPS corals, and, like the situation with most wrasses, small shrimp (such as sexies) will be at risk. Otherwise, they are docile and peaceful. Smaller Canthigaster can fill this roll as well, but the personailty of these fish is highly variable, and some (such as the Valentine's) can be aggressive.

In your tank, with good maintenance you could have perhaps four or five small fish. The only caution you should take is, try to introduce the peppermints before the skunk cleaners, as the former are much less boisterous and quite a bit smaller at full size. Or, just buy all shrimp the same size.

 

[Adrinal]

The tank is a bit small for wrasses, IMO... I can't tell the dimensions, but I assume they are not a shallow custom long tank.

2False perc
2 fire fish or purple ( I wouldn't invest in the helfrich with such a small tank).
1 neon goby would rock the most and not challenge the fire fish. While they are small... you do have a nano tank. They pack a punch of personality. Its also one fish that wont bother the firefish.

 

[Lynden]

If I was going to go with small fish (between that and a lion with the new tank) I would go mostly for gobies such as the neon (Gobiosoma). The way they skitter across the rocks is really cool in my opinion.

 

[Rambo]

thanx guys,

i think i'll go with the 2 clowns, a firefish and a goby then

and thanx for the advise on the shrimps, lynden, i hadn't thought about that before now.



the tank is basically a new version of the classic 24 gallon cube, such as done by D&D/JBL, etc

it has 4 compartments at the back, which i'll (eventually) set out as follows:


1st - filter wool, replaced weekly
2nd - currently ceramics and carbon, may change to live rock rubble soon
3rd - protein skimmer
4th - heater and x2 powerheads

the max usable volume of the tank for the fish is about 18"x14"x20" lxwxh