New respect for smaller fish in Nano tank

[Jakesaw]

Been 2 years in hobby, with my 10 gallon.  Should be moved in 20 L by now, but Bubble algae has slowed the migration greatly.  

 

After keeping a Mai Tai clown since tiny and a medium sized Talbot Damsel in there, I'm realizing that for mixed fish / coral aquarium, being limited to peaceful smaller fish being somewhat restrictive for the smaller tanks.  While fish like Clowns can live in a 10 gallon, they do outgrow the tanks size and fish can be hostile to corals that interfere with their swim space.  

 

My clown has a few soft corals it tolerates well, but has a regular habit of knocking other corals out of the way and generally moving anything it can with it's body and tail fin to flip, bury, re-arrange sandbed.  I can't really put any corals in my sandbed without them buying harassed constantly by both fish and if I glue anything that extends out, my clown aggressively attacks it.

 

I think it's b/c the tank space is too small for the fish.  Still want a mixed reef 20L ish tank, but not sure what fish I would / could put in there for harmoneous relations.  Finding myself limited to gobies and other small less interesting swimmers. 

 

One of my favorite red candy cane corals has spent as much time laying in the sand the past 2 years as it has upright and happy gathering light and nutrients.  

[sleepyreefer55]

That's pretty funny, but sounds like you've found out what your clown will and wont put up with. 

[mcarroll]

Are you keeping both tanks?  How about fish+corals in the "bigger" one (20L is still in the realm of tiny) and corals+inverts in the smaller one?

[Jakesaw]

14 hours ago, mcarroll said:

20L is still in the realm of tiny

That's my main issue.  Doesn't really leave room for my mixed reef idea AND big clown fish ( who will probably grow another inch this year to reach full adult size 4" ).

 

I don't want the 40 set up yet ( still much to learn ) but the large fish in small tank is cumbersome and driving / misdirecting my tank planning. 

I really like activity  of Talbot who is constantly swimming the entire tank - but he is a bit of a bugger re-scaping the sand constantly.  He does have an aggressive territorial personality for size and larger clown keeps Talbot in check.  I could probably glue corals to rock without any issues with Talbtot damsel b/c of size and swim agility, but sandbed again is target for his own scaping ideas.  Talbot blows sand, digs around rocks and buries corals in sandbed.  No moving frags around though.

----

If I had to do it all over again today, I'd like to focus on small coral reef tank and find some smaller swimmer fish - but that ideal nano fish really doesn't exist ( maybe my Talbot is one ) that I've found.

 

I'd like to compose a list of smaller peaceful  10 or 20L fish that could live comfortably in that tank size for a long time without outgrowing the tank - as well as get some swim motion at all times. 

 

Clown goby is a nice one - but not super active

Firefish is a possibility

Royal Grama is a nice one - but past experience is they are skittish to re-arranging anything in the tank.

Wrasse -probably a no go - Would really like a nice swimming Wrasse, but thing 20L is still too small for my behavioral interests w/o causing other problems.

 

 

 

 

[jservedio]

That's just clownfish. Try re-scaping the tank for a week or so then scape it back to how you want it with the new coral in place.

 

My clowns will do the same thing if I put anything in their space and being as massive they are, will even flip hunks of live rock bigger than your fist. If you want to add more coral in their territory, do a little bit of a re-scape and they will likely accept it. Since their existing territory will no longer exist, they will have to settle a new territory. When they are looking for a new territory, they are generally far less destructive. When you change their existing territory, they will do everything the can to preserve it.

 

If you try and force something new in their existing space and just glue it down so they can't move it, they may just end up killing it in the process of trying to remove it. Moving things around for a few days and then moving them back how you want will probably do the trick.

[Reefkid88]

So,before getting fish that grow to be bigger than what the tank can handle,why not just get fished meant for smaller tanks ? Not that really any fish is "small enough" 90% of them come from the ocean. 

 

 With tanks smaller than 20g there isn't many choices. Maybe a pair of clowns,a single Damsel,trimma or evoita gobies and some other goby speciea are small enough for a 10g. 

[mcarroll]

2 hours ago, Jakesaw said:

If I had to do it all over again today, I'd like to focus on small coral reef tank and find some smaller swimmer fish - but that ideal nano fish really doesn't exist ( maybe my Talbot is one ) that I've found.

Honestly, the best fish for ≤30 Gallons are all in freshwater – bazillions of choices.   You ever do a freshwater planted tank?

[Jakesaw]

 

34 minutes ago, Reefkid88 said:

So,before getting fish that grow to be bigger than what the tank can handle,why not just get fished meant for smaller tanks ? 

 

I thought I did that with Clown and Talbot Damsel.  20/20 hindsight, learned the guy at fish store sold me a larger variant of the species.  Store was busy with customers on Saturday and I grabbed a clown to let owner get to a bigger spending customer.  

[Reefkid88]

Well why don't you take the clown to a LFS and get a smaller species or morph ?