Fish stocking advice?

kope1078 · Feb 9, 2016

Here is a list of fish we plan on stocking our 300g fowlr with, I have a good idea what order I want to stock just looking for a few opinions.
Here's the list:
1. Emporer Angle
2. Queen Angle
3. Flame Angle
4. Bi-Color Angle
5. Magnificent Foxface
6. Copperband Butterfly Fish
7. 3 Bartletts Anthias, 1 male, 2 females
8. 2 mandarins
9. high fin goby and pistol shrimp
10. Long nose hawkfish
11. 2 dwarf/ zebra lionfish
12. yellow tang
13. achilles tang or purple tang ( haven't decided yet)
14. six line wrasse
15. 2 picasso clowns
16. blue spot jawfish
17. lawnmower blenny
18. possible a powder brown, sailfin, or powder blue tang
19. 2 cleaner shrimp
20. various snails and crabs

That is not my order I plan to stock, its just a list I threw together. All opinions are appreciated.

Thanks

dacianb · Feb 9, 2016

Didnt owned all fishes from your list, but what I had:
- bicolor angel - amazing fish as long as there are no corals around (wiped out large colonies of zoas in few days)
- Copperband - for me was a failure. I kept him alive for couple of months but he eat only live shrimps (and I had to flood the tank with live shrimps for the copperband to pick couple of them). All my fishes almost had issue breathing due to huge bellies... I tried everything I red / saw around, no success. In the end he became very skinny and died.
- Mandarins - as i know same issues, difficult to feed
- Yellow tang - gorgeous fish. I keep it together with a kole tang - they are like brothers.
- six line wrasse - may become a bully and aggressive towards large fishes and shrimps. I had once, no way ever will buy a new one.

kope1078 · Feb 9, 2016

Won't be any corals

dacianb · Feb 9, 2016

kope1078 said:
Won't be any corals

everybody start with fish only tanks... than s**t happens and you get hooked to corals. My bicolor was in tank 1 year before fist coral

.

kope1078 · Feb 9, 2016

If only I was just starting out, been doing reefs for almost ten years. This is my first fowlr tank

timkenagy · Feb 9, 2016

Is this a new fish list as in your fist fish list? What's your experience level. If you're newer to the hobby scratch that Achilles off the list. Especially if you plan a powder blue or powder brown. But the Achilles is a very difficult finicky fish. And at $300 it's a tough one to swallow when the odds are against you. It's my favorite fish and I've been reading for 3 years. I'm about to pull the trigger on one. I have a place I can get a good deal on one and I have a 180 gallon set up spicifically to get him acclaimed and healthy. I plan on keeping him there for a year minimum before even considering the display with the rest of the community.

The purple is another pricy fish and I haven't even seen any on availability lists. Might be tough to find one.

Copperband.. My friend that got me into reefing was the best reefer I've ever met. He gave up after 3. I've heard if you can find a healthy one from another reefer then you may have luck.. Otherwise survival rate is very low.

Bluespot another fish I'm gonna be getting.. As I have a good price on one. A friend bought one for a lot of mine and he had it for 2 weeks and it jumped.. So just be careful. He was bummed to lose such a pricy fish because of jumping.

Unless you have a huge population of pods I don't ever recommend mandarins. I have 1 only because a friend got one without properly reading on it and he asked me to take it. But my fuge/frag/sump is bigger than my display.. You can literally see 500 pods in my frag tank at a any givin time.. That said I've heard 2 mandarins can dicimate an entire population of pods pretty quickly.

I don't have any experience with angels so read up on compatibility with each other.

Lions are cool but pretty much just sit there.. So they lose the cool factor pretty fast. I couldn't get mine to eat frozen so keeping a supply of live feeders was a pain.. But if you don't mind that they're hardy.

Most the others are fairly easy but some are expensive.. But I'm sure you've seen prices..

kope1078 · Feb 9, 2016

Been in the game a long time. Just wanted opinions on the order I should add them to the tank. I have a good idea how I want to but just looking for another opinion in case I'm missing something. I'm well aware of all the fish and their needs. I've never kept angles before that's the main reason I'm setting up this tank. I still have two other tanks that are full reefs

dacianb · Feb 9, 2016

kope1078 said:
If only I was just starting out, been doing reefs for almost ten years. This is my first fowlr tank

hahah... then will work. Sorry I thought that this is your first tank.

eatbreakfast · Feb 9, 2016

Besides the lions, everything should be fine, but there is a lot of livestock on your list that the lions will be capable of eating.

kope1078 · Feb 9, 2016

Yeah, the lions are what has me worried. My wife really wants them and I've been telling her they will eat whatever fits in their mouth. I was hoping since they were dwarfs and if I put them in as juveniles they wouldn't mess with anything.