Wrangy
Valuable Member
Everyone has that little thing in the hobby that caused the wonderful snowball addiction that is reef keeping and well for me that always has been and always will lionfish! I remember the very first time I walked into an aquarium that was selling marine animals and in one of the tanks was one of the most gorgeous p. volitans, I was so mesmerised I spent 20 minutes just watching this wonderful fish do it's thing.
Enough blabbering though, on the occasion my lfs gets in fuzzies which I adore but I went in the other day and much to my absolute joy and delight, he has in one of the nicest d. biocellatus I've seen in a very long time! Now I can't possibly keep one in my reef as I have lots of expensive meals in there for even a small mouthed lion, I thought I might be able to get away with housing the little guy in my sump tank but alas that's a little too small for their needs.
Fast forward a few hours till when my partner got home and I was able to bombard the poor woman with my excitement and joy of seeing this gorgeous little fish, I think I must have been a little over the top about it all and also in my disappointment about not being able to get the little guy because to my great surprise she said "let's look at getting another tank".... needless to say I nearly exploded lol. So this brings me to the point of my post haha.
It's some questions to deal with some plans I have for setting this tank up for my potential lovelies! I've been looking at some small options to house a couple of species and would have loved to do a Nuvo drop off tank for it but even then I think it's too small and my buddy at the lfs reckons it would be a little uncomfortable too.
So after all that nonsense, my plans are sitting at getting a Mini Reef 120 (2x1.5x1.5') (30g + sump) and upgrading it to a properly capable tank for such beasty little critters. Now I'm comfortable with housing the single d. biocellatus in there but I have some others I would love to add and have a couple of buddies in there with him. So a few things I'm looking at as friends are the following:
- P. radiata I would ADORE having one of these guys in there as well but I'm a little iffy on this given the size of the tank but someone please tell me I can get away with it lol
- Caracanthus sp. for something different and I don't think he'll be consumed
- Antennarius maculatus we get these occasionally as well and would make another nice addition.
- Any other mixed preds like leaf's or scorpion's or even wasp's but I don't think we can get wasp's here in Aus.
Pretty much the stocking on the tank will be "light" (lol) and only have 2 or 3 fish at very most with a combination of any of the above. As this is a dedicated setup to these guys any requirement can really be met without much worry, it'll hardly be more work than my sps tank lol. The plan is live marine feeder shrimp and hopefully eventually transition to gut stuffed frozen silverside
I'm not getting my hopes up on the d. biocellatus transitioning though but we'll see
Man I can ramble, thanks those that have read the whole thing haha
Well it goes without saying that I'm going to have to tag my lionfish idol @Lionfish Lair as your work with these wonderful creatures I constantly follow I would truly appreciate your insight Renee
Enough blabbering though, on the occasion my lfs gets in fuzzies which I adore but I went in the other day and much to my absolute joy and delight, he has in one of the nicest d. biocellatus I've seen in a very long time! Now I can't possibly keep one in my reef as I have lots of expensive meals in there for even a small mouthed lion, I thought I might be able to get away with housing the little guy in my sump tank but alas that's a little too small for their needs.
Fast forward a few hours till when my partner got home and I was able to bombard the poor woman with my excitement and joy of seeing this gorgeous little fish, I think I must have been a little over the top about it all and also in my disappointment about not being able to get the little guy because to my great surprise she said "let's look at getting another tank".... needless to say I nearly exploded lol. So this brings me to the point of my post haha.
It's some questions to deal with some plans I have for setting this tank up for my potential lovelies! I've been looking at some small options to house a couple of species and would have loved to do a Nuvo drop off tank for it but even then I think it's too small and my buddy at the lfs reckons it would be a little uncomfortable too.
So after all that nonsense, my plans are sitting at getting a Mini Reef 120 (2x1.5x1.5') (30g + sump) and upgrading it to a properly capable tank for such beasty little critters. Now I'm comfortable with housing the single d. biocellatus in there but I have some others I would love to add and have a couple of buddies in there with him. So a few things I'm looking at as friends are the following:
- P. radiata I would ADORE having one of these guys in there as well but I'm a little iffy on this given the size of the tank but someone please tell me I can get away with it lol
- Caracanthus sp. for something different and I don't think he'll be consumed
- Antennarius maculatus we get these occasionally as well and would make another nice addition.
- Any other mixed preds like leaf's or scorpion's or even wasp's but I don't think we can get wasp's here in Aus.
Pretty much the stocking on the tank will be "light" (lol) and only have 2 or 3 fish at very most with a combination of any of the above. As this is a dedicated setup to these guys any requirement can really be met without much worry, it'll hardly be more work than my sps tank lol. The plan is live marine feeder shrimp and hopefully eventually transition to gut stuffed frozen silverside
I'm not getting my hopes up on the d. biocellatus transitioning though but we'll see Man I can ramble, thanks those that have read the whole thing haha
Well it goes without saying that I'm going to have to tag my lionfish idol @Lionfish Lair as your work with these wonderful creatures I constantly follow
I would truly appreciate your insight Renee 
I do adore fuzzies but then again I'm biased towards all lions lol
I've already got the ATO, skimmer, heaters, powerheads and everything lined up for the 120 too so at least with that I know I don't need anything extra!
haha. I've never really asked about predators for my tank as it's never been possible but with a new tank it changes everything lol I'm hopefully getting my Fu tomorrow and HOPEFULLY the new tank in the next few weeks as well 
