Need fish recomendations

lilbitreefer · Jan 20, 2018

So long story short my tank has been stocked with murdering big fish/inverts. In particular a pistol shrimp that ate a leg off my SSstar fish, and possibly murderd my tailspot and the watchman goby I gave him as a friend. I am nervous my green coris wrass has been the one causing havoc as well killing my cleaner shrimp and other replcement fish. I plan on getting rid of him soon. What are your guys thoughts on this list for a new start?

List:
purple tang
sand sifting goby
mandarin
bangaii's
fire fish
fairy wrass
anthias
two clown fish unknown species but they havent died in the last 1.5 years
sandsiftng star fish
inverts

Below you can read my sad story of a naive reef keepers story on poor fish selection over the last two years.

So, over the last year few years I have been trying to stock my tank. I have been checking for compatability based on the LFS recomendatins and what I cold find on the internet. I initially had a scopas tang, niger trigger and a green coris wrasse. I noticed it becoming difficult to keep smaller fish. i.e my three bangaii cardinal fish lived for many months even bred at one point tailspot blennie got rid of all my alage etc. I started noticing these fish disappearing. of all the fish so far only my clown fish and one linely bangai cardinal fish survived. I chopped this death to old age, maybe stress. Well as I replaced my fish they kept just dissapearing. No bodies to be found. plt thickens about 6 months later I started thinking it was my trigger, got rid of him, other fish kept dissapearing. Until two months ago I say my coris wrasse eating the nagles tail of waht was my tails spot blennie. I have since been trying to catch them. I have drained to about a 1/3 full. I ran out of room to hold the water somewhere else. and was unable to catch him. I did manage to get rid of my tang though. I plan to drain it completley today.

highendofthelow · Jan 20, 2018

I think it would be really unlucky to have your pistol shrimp kill off all the fish if I'm honest. I would be looking into more of a hitch-hiking nasty that may do that- would have a look in the tank at night with a red torch to rule out something like a bobbit worm etc.

Coris wrasse are known to be a bit naughty with shrimp but also knocking corals over when sand diving- they would definitely eat the corpse of other fish- its all protein at the end of the day, and they can be aggressive enough to kill other fish but would expect this to happen soon after introduction.

As for your new list- it certainly looks an interesting mix although I would definitely make sure your mircofauna is good with the mix of fairy wrasses, anthias, fire fish and Mandarins. They will demolish pod populations in a heartbeat - would be worth in investment in Tank Bred Mandarins if you can find them as they are often more likely to take frozen and possibly pellets etc than wild caught (wild caught can be trained to do so but is a pain in the backside if they aren't getting enough food in the first place). It looks like a mix of a peaceful community tank though and look forward to seeing the results.

lilbitreefer · Jan 20, 2018

Thanks. We shall see I just need to catch this coris wrass today.

PatW · Jan 20, 2018

Mandarins are obligate pod eaters. They quickly eat the pods in a tank and then die. You need to get one that will eat other food. I have heard that even then mandarins like multiple meals per day.

Purple tangs can be aggressive. I have had good luck with a yellow tang and Kole tang. Bengai cardinals and fire fish are nice either as singles or as pairs.

I would check out fish on live aquaria that are peaceful, reef safe and easy that are appropriate for say tanks of 75 gallons and smaller. Doing so will give you some nice candidates.