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20 Long stocking ideas


Halo_003

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Right now I have one gladiator clown and one red scooter dragonet which is trained on frozen. Ideally over the next few months I'd like to add 2-3 more fish. I have a skimmer and NO3 is like 5.

These are what I'm looking at:
1x Leopard wrasse* - unsure of exact type
1x Potter's Angel*
1x Coral Beauty*
1x Mystery Wrasse*
1x Bartlett's anthias*
1x helfrichi fire fish
Tiger shrimp goby+tiger pistol shrimp
1x purple fire fish

*=would buy only one of these larger/active ones

Plan to have one of the larger/more active fish, a fire fish or shrimp goby, red scooter and a clown pair if I find another nice one. 5 fish total if i ever find another clown, If I did get a leopard wrasse it would have to be trained on frozen obviously.

The point is to have 1 or two high end clowns, 1 exotic active show fish(ie leopard wrasse), 1x pretty one like the fire fish and the scooter. The shrimp goby is a wildcard. If I do get a second clown it would be the last fish in the tank.

 

SEE POST #25 FOR UPDATED LISTING

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Hmm, I'd go with a high end Clown (Percula or Occy) one Helfrichi, a shrimp goby or dragonet (Make sure to have a fuge) and one other smaller fish. Another clown or firefish would be best.

IMO a Leopard Wrasse, Mystery Wrasse, Potters/CB Angel, or an Anthias isn't a good choice for a 20L.

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Right now I have one gladiator clown and one red scooter dragonet which is trained on frozen. Ideally over the next few months I'd like to add 2-3 more fish. I have a skimmer and NO3 is like 5.

 

These are what I'm looking at:

1x Leopard wrasse* - unsure of exact type - not a good choice, poor shippers, can get a fair size, can be delicate, deserve more space imo

1x Potter's Angel* - can be delicate, may eat corals

1x Coral Beauty* - may eat corals but better track record than potters and not particularly delicate

1x Mystery Wrasse* - aggressive

1x Bartlett's anthias* - need larger tank imo

1x helfrichi fire fish - good choice

Tiger shrimp goby+tiger pistol shrimp - good choice

1x purple fire fish - good choice

 

*=would buy only one of these larger/active ones

 

Plan to have one of the larger/more active fish, a fire fish or shrimp goby, red scooter and a clown pair if I find another nice one. 5 fish total if i ever find another clown, If I did get a leopard wrasse it would have to be trained on frozen obviously. That is 6 fish :P

 

The point is to have 1 or two high end clowns, 1 exotic active show fish(ie leopard wrasse), 1x pretty one like the fire fish and the scooter. The shrimp goby is a wildcard. If I do get a second clown it would be the last fish in the tank.

 

May want to check out this damsel (it is my replacement for angels, active but not aggressive, some peoples do dig in the sand but mine doesn't so your experiance may vary): http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+28+1511&pcatid=1511

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I have seen the fish Tamberav is talking about a very pretty fish. When it comes to damsels you can never tell what you are getting prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Another thing you might consider is a clown goby. They are small and stay small, loads of personality. I would stay away from angels they are anything but angels from my experience.

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Hmm can't do a clown goby or damsel. (I know clowns are damsels)

 

A damsel I can't do because I need peaceful mates for the red scooter. I'd like to be SPS dominant so a clown goby would be a big risk I think.

 

This might make things a bit more clear, plus updated. Items with a * I already have.

 

Clown(s):

Single ORA Premium Gladiator*

Single ORA Premium Picasso - would like to add last. Ie next year.

 

1x Show fish: (active, lovely, eye-catching)

Potter's Angel

Coral Beauty

Mystery wrasse

Leopard Wrasse - Macropharyngodon kuiteri male or Macropharyngodon meleagris female, or Macropharyngodon bipartitus - female. All on liveaquaria if you want to check.

Some sort of fairy or flasher wrasse? Looking for blues and other colors than red or orange. Lubbock's maybe.

 

2x Semi active fish:

Purple or Helfrichi firefish - paired

Tanaka's pygmy possum wrasse

Pink streak wrasse

Shrimp goby?

Red Scooter*

 

My thoughts on the leopard wrasse.... Size is pushing it right now I know. On the other hand I was thinking it might be easier to monitor in a smaller tank and get it eating, etc. I would train it on frozen obviously.

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Wrasses will eat all the food your scooter will eat. Even if you train them to frozen, flakes, pellets at any time they can revert back to eating pods. Scooters are considered difficult so that is why I wouldn't consider one for one of my tanks.

 

Is your tank well covered? Firefish are jumpers and hiders from what I have had.

 

If you have corals don't consider a dwarf angel mine basically munched on anything and everything but the leathers. Everyone have different experiences with them some go 5 years without getting the coral munchies. Mine also nipped at all anemones even at aptasia.

 

Remember clowns are messy fish and are a large bioload in themselves.

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My coral beauty is somewhat aggressive and nips at my SPS coral a little (just in its nature to nip things). If a coral gets injured, then its gone... my angel will not leave it alone and it can't recover with the nagging angel.

 

Just realize the fish choices are not the most compatible with each other or corals. So there could be problems but doesn't mean there will be.

 

If you do get a leopard, get one that has been in the store for awhile if possible. They are poor shippers and getting one to stay alive after being shipped until it acclimates is a greater challenge then getting it to eat.

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Hmm. Its a dilemma for sure. I want a dwarf angel but I like healthy/happy corals more. A kole tang is an idea, if I find a baby one maybe. I'm switching the tank over the summer to either a 24*24*12 Deep Blue rimless or something similar to the IM 30L.

 

The wrasse is a tough idea as well. I like my red scooter but I want something killer for my like centerpiece fish. Something insanely pretty that really stands out and isn't common. Thus the desire for a leopard. If I did get one I'd do a lot more research and find a good source. I don't trust my LFS's enough except maybe one that runs copper in his tanks. The rest don't and I'd hate to risk the rest of my fish.:)

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I get ya :) When something is insanely pretty and isn't common then you can bet it comes with its difficulties or costs a fortune otherwise it would be common :D

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Hmm. Its a dilemma for sure. I want a dwarf angel but I like healthy/happy corals more. A kole tang is an idea, if I find a baby one maybe. I'm switching the tank over the summer to either a 24*24*12 Deep Blue rimless or something similar to the IM 30L.

 

The wrasse is a tough idea as well. I like my red scooter but I want something killer for my like centerpiece fish. Something insanely pretty that really stands out and isn't common. Thus the desire for a leopard. If I did get one I'd do a lot more research and find a good source. I don't trust my LFS's enough except maybe one that runs copper in his tanks. The rest don't and I'd hate to risk the rest of my fish. :)

IMO, a better show fish would be a dartfish, they're colorful and cool fish. A leopard wrasse would outcompete the scooter, and likely kill it.

Also a little small for an angel.

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Legendary Corals

Single ORA Premium Gladiator*

Single ORA Premium Picasso

 

1x Show fish: (active, lovely, eye-catching)

Flasher would be the best wrasse choice. Or a pink streak wrasse or possum. I'd just choose one wrasse.

 

2x Semi active fish:

Helfrichi firefish - single (pair would be awesome, but it would be pushing your tank's limit. Keeping everything simple makes for a happier reefer and tank)

Red Scooter*

 

I think this list would be good. 6 fish is really pushing it for a 20 gallon. I have 5 in my 25 cube, and I feel extremely guilty.

 

I've done the whole angel routine. It's just a phase, trust me on that. Once it picks on your corals, you'll have to make a choice between the fish or coral. Eventually you'll choose corals because you're a reefer, and you won't miss it so much. I've tried plenty of angels, and they all eventually picked on my corals. Try not to make your reefing experience harder than it has to be.

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Good feedback. That was my thought on the angel as well, I'm concerned I'd get it and it'd like my birdsnest.

 

That is a good idea on the list. Only issue I may have would be a fire fish pair. I had a regular fire fish before and it hid like 90% of the time. If i got more than 1 i figure they would be more active and replace a wrasse entirely.

 

They're difficult to pair as well so what I may look at doing is getting like 5 purple fire fish juvies in the hopes of them forming a true harem. (They form male+2xfemale harems in the wild.)

 

If I did that I'd buy 5 and let them form their harem and remove the other two. If I did that I'd be running 7 fish temporarily, which doesn't seem too bad really since I skim heavily and I do approx 35% water changes weekly. I typically run 0 nitrates and I think it would only take a couple of months for the harem to form.

 

Like I said if I tried this I wouldn't get anything else other than maybe a clown.

 

This would be the list then:

1x Premium Gladiator

1x Premium Picasso - last/eventually - maybe after tank upgrade

5x purple fire fish - would be 3 long term, 5 temporary in hopes of forming a harem. Can't afford that many helfrichi lol.

1x red scooter

 

Thoughts? This would also be very peaceful I think and very pretty overall.

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Wrasses will eat all the food your scooter will eat. Even if you train them to frozen, flakes, pellets at any time they can revert back to eating pods. Scooters are considered difficult so that is why I wouldn't consider one for one of my tanks.

 

Is your tank well covered? Firefish are jumpers and hiders from what I have had.

 

If you have corals don't consider a dwarf angel mine basically munched on anything and everything but the leathers. Everyone have different experiences with them some go 5 years without getting the coral munchies. Mine also nipped at all anemones even at aptasia.

 

Remember clowns are messy fish and are a large bioload in themselves.

 

Yep you have a scooter so no leopard wrasse unless you can 100% keep both from competing. The dragonet alone could wipe you clean of pods. For the active large fish I'd choose the mystery wrasse but even that's a little big. You could go an opposite route of fancy more exotic rare showpieces like rare gobies and blennies

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The harem of firefish sounds cool. Not something often seen.

I agree. I love firefish and a harem is possible to form according to multiple people on RC. It seems you need to start with a large group and hope pair(s) or harems will form. It would be something very unique so I'd like to try. I hadn't considered it until last night.

 

Worst case scenario is I have to pull some out and sell them locally and I end up with only 1 or two, still acceptable and if that happened I could still get a wrasse of some sort. :)

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I think I'm going to go ahead and try to find 5-6 of them under an inch if possible. This should give me two extras that I'll need to trade or sell to locals but that shouldn't be too hard. Ideally I'll end up with the male-female-female harem or at least a bonded pair. A serious question I have is how would I QT them? It needs to be all at once obviously and they should be QTed all together to get them used to each other ASAP. Do you guys think a 10G would work okay? If not I'll have to figure something out, my QT is only 5 gallons but I have an extra 10 as well.

 

Looking at best sources for them for now, might contact Live Aquaria and see what they could do about a group of tiny ones. I like having the guarantee on fish when I can in case of parasites etc. I'm planning to buy them all in December-January range I think, for now I'll hold off on any more fish while I do extra research on the harem building process.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Another idea.

 

(This would only be if I upgrade to a custom 30G.)

 

1x ORA Premium Gladiator Clownfish *

1x ORA Platinum/Picasso Clownfish - last

1x ORA Gold Assessor - only if tank is upgraded

3x Purple firefish - male Female female harem or:

2x helfrichi firefish bonded pair from divers den.

1x Red scooter dragonet male*

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I still don't think the dragonet is a good idea

 

I already have it. I got him late August and trained him on to frozen. He was the only fish until maybe 3 weeks ago when the Gladiator came in from Diver's. Den, he's done really well so far, I feed daily and he hunts all the time. I have some macros and 33 lbs of live rock and he's not thin at all. Additionally I still see pods all over. I wasn't sure how he would do when I got him but he's done very well so far.

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i have a helfrich and i love mine. even named it - i dont normally name my fish. she (i call her a she, but dont know the actual sex) is so jumpy its cute. and the colors - incredible looking fish.

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i have a helfrich and i love mine. even named it - i dont normally name my fish. she (i call her a she, but dont know the actual sex) is so jumpy its cute. and the colors - incredible looking fish.

 

 

I'm torn between trying the harem of purple firefish or a pair/single helfrichi. I love the colors of all of them.

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I've got a helfrichi in with a pink streaked wrasse, and the helfrichi is out all the time. It's very bold, and even when it gets spooked, it pops into its cave and is back out within seconds. The wrasse is much more skittish.

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I've got a helfrichi in with a pink streaked wrasse, and the helfrichi is out all the time. It's very bold, and even when it gets spooked, it pops into its cave and is back out within seconds. The wrasse is much more skittish.

I think I would rather have the firefish anyways. Ideally I would LOVE to have multiple, I love the way they swim. Though I know unless they're a bonded pair or a true harem they will kill each other.

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  • 5 weeks later...

UPDATE:

 

 

Unless something changes....

 

I think this is the plan:

 

Gladiator clown Pair - have my Female already, I'll need to find a nice male at some point though I was considering a black snowflake for the male.

Red Scooter - have him, super cool & interactive fish

2x Helfrichi Firefish from Diver's Den OR 2x Purple Firefish paired up from a larger group (Need to get)

1x ORA Gold Assessor from Diver's Den (Need to get)

Tanaka's Pygmy Possum Wrasse - MAYBE (don't have yet)*

 

I was tossing around the idea of perhaps the 2 Helfrichi and 1 purple, I might consider it more in depth later on but for now I'd rather stick to just a pair.

 

Any thoughts on this? I won't be buying any more fish until I get my upgraded tank which will essentially be an IM Fusion 30L, so I have some time. I think this would give me a wonderful splash of colors though, especially if I did end up stocking a bit more heavily and getting 2x Helfrichi and a purple. (Which should be okay if there's enough hidey holes.)

 

*If I was to get 2x Helfrichi and wanted a purple as well, the purple would replace the wrasse on this list.

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