fish picks sound reasonable?

benny z · Dec 10, 2013

narrowing down stocking wants for my 28g nano. so far there is a yasha goby/pistol shrimp, and that's it. the planned "stars" of the tank are a bonded pair of swissguard basslets. i was told last week that i am about two weeks out from receiving those...maybe in time for christmas.

i keep teetering on various fish that would do well in a nano, trying to stay around the 2" max size mark. here's what i've landed on at the moment...i'm so picky! just curious if i'm missing any blazing danger signs with this mix of fish. as far as my line of thinking goes, these fish are all peaceful and should make a good community within the small confines of the tank.

yellow-banded possom wrasse. if it weren't for planning to keep swissguard basslets, i'd get the more vibrant orange/red tanaka possom wrasse, but i want the red stripes of the swissguards to be the red of the tank fish-wise. this should be an active free-swimming fish once comfortable in the tank.

geometric pygmy hawkfish. i know what you are thinking - hawkfish can be eeeevil! but this one isn't actually a hawkfish...it's a member of the anthias family. still a cryptic percher like a hawkfish, though.

helfrichi firefish. idk...pretty common, but my wife really likes them and it would be another free swimmer. i have slight hesitation mixing this in with the now-established-but-still-rarely-seen yasha goby, but i think it will work since the yasha doesn't come very far from the burrow entrance. ...and there's the slight chance they could end up friends and share the burrow.

Marshall O · Dec 10, 2013

I like your selections very much actually. However, if you were to do all, that would be 6 fish in there which is pushing it IMO. But besides that, I have a JBJ 28 that has been running for 18 months now. Inhabitants are a Blue Spotted Jawfish, Yellow Banded Possum Wrasse, Helfrichi Firefish, Tailspot Blenny and Yellow Assessor. The Possum Wrasse spends all day in and out of the rockwork hunting for pods. Doesn't really bother anyone except once and a while will "display" to the Helfrichi, No damage or anything from this, just trying to show dominance. Helfrichi is front and center 100% of the time. Doesn't swim too much obviously, but nice fish. Gets along with everyone and was a very nice addition. I don't think you would have any issues at all with the Goby. I have never kept the Geometric Hawkfish, so I can't comment on that one.

My concern would be on the Basslets though. I have never kept one, but I know they can be more on the aggressive side. In a smaller, well stocked tank, that could cause issue. Just speculating though.

benny z · Dec 10, 2013

Marshall O said:
I like your selections very much actually. However, if you were to do all, that would be 6 fish in there which is pushing it IMO. But besides that, I have a JBJ 28 that has been running for 18 months now. Inhabitants are a Blue Spotted Jawfish, Yellow Banded Possum Wrasse, Helfrichi Firefish, Tailspot Blenny and Yellow Assessor. The Possum Wrasse spends all day in and out of the rockwork hunting for pods. Doesn't really bother anyone except once and a while will "display" to the Helfrichi, No damage or anything from this, just trying to show dominance. Helfrichi is front and center 100% of the time. Doesn't swim too much obviously, but nice fish. Gets along with everyone and was a very nice addition. I don't think you would have any issues at all with the Goby. I have never kept the Geometric Hawkfish, so I can't comment on that one.

My concern would be on the Basslets though. I have never kept one, but I know they can be more on the aggressive side. In a smaller, well stocked tank, that could cause issue. Just speculating though.

thank you for your reply. it's good to hear someone keeping similar fish in the same tank. mine is also a jbj 28g.

i'm not too concerned about the bioload. they are all very small fish and i'm an experienced aquarist. i've been feeding the tank as if this stocking list already existed and have things under control.

the swissguard basslets are liopropoma basslets - not basslets like dottybacks. liopropomas are peaceful cave-dwellers and cryptic by nature. my biggest concern is having too many other fish, or an agressor, that keeps them hidden in the rocks most of the time. the goal here is to have other tankmates that pose zero threat to them so they are happy enough to swim out from the rockwork in the open.

Marshall O · Dec 10, 2013

Sounds like you have a good plan and know what you are doing then. Back when I was planning the stocking of my 28, I as well was looking into adding a Swissguard as well. I was warned that they can become aggressive, and so decided against it. LA lists them as semi-aggressive as well. So that is where my concern on them comes from, but again, I don't have any experience with them.