According to the owner of my LFS, the dwarf angel is about full-grown at that size but probably would do better in a larger tank. As for the french angel need to find either a bigger tank or a new home.
I haven't had the space or the money to keep a big tank so I gradually collected more and more small tanks to reach this point. I also Like how I can keep different fish that wouldn't be compatible in the same tank all at once.
Based on your knowledge, would all the fish I have be compatible? or would some have to go in order to keep the peace? The cocoa damsel I know for a fact would have to get the boot because that fish is a menace. Aside from that do you know which fish would fight in a tank?
My old angel when j kept FOWLR was a devil who destroyed everything and ate my urchins. Really was only friendly towards tangs and for some odd reason my yellow watchman goby
What kind of angel was it?
I know it's easy for us to be critical when we have a lot of experience in the hobby but part of being in this hobby is teaching others and assisting them on their journey. Walker, I would suggest you use this forum to learn as much as you can about this hobby instead of looking for ratings. There are thousands of people on Reef2Reef that are cornucopias of knowledge. Ask questions and do your research especially when it comes to livestock.
As far as my recommendations go with your current tanks, if these are your first ones I would consider not having so many and just focus on one or two. Having started in this hobby with a 20 gallon tank I can't say take it "slow and steady" enough. I would consider myself to be very successful with my tank but I took my time and did plenty of research when it came to adding corals and fish. Many people will say a smaller tank is much harder to keep in the hobby especially if its your first one. A small error in dosing or water chemistry can have very large consequences.
For livestock, don't let your eyes make decisions on what you want. Many fish are not suitable for smaller aquariums. Even the dwarf angel that is in your tank is best off in a larger tank and one that is established with many critters it can graze on. Its easy to get caught up in getting fish that you want even if they are small and give them back or trade them when they outgrow the tank. In theory that works but in smaller tanks that doesn't always happen. I have added pictures so you can see how mine changed over the first year.
I know reading this probably isn't what you wanted to hear but hopefully it will help you out in your reef keeping journey.
Here are some pics of my 20 gallon as it progressed from new to mature and during rough spouts when I had water chemistry problems. (its not always glamorous)
Day 1
2 Months after setup - First coral(s) added
3 Months after setup - First fish and more coral
4-5 Months after setup - Algae issues, more coral, additional fish
7 Months after setup - Algae continues to be an issue and first big coral loss
(leather coral on left had flatworms so I dipped but did it incorrectly and killed it)
(didn't take time before to research the dip....)
1 Year after setup - Tank is mature, algae issues are rare. Still no SPS corals
1.5 Years after setup - finally SPS introduced with Acro frags (both withered away) got a stag horn frag that I still have to this day that is grapefruit sized colony.
2 years after setup -
Tank reached its peak with corals and had 4 fish. Then started to battle coral death with lack of dosing (no sump). Ended up upgrading to a 90 gallon system this year. 75% of coral in this picture is no longer living due to disease and the tank move. (it's a hard hobby but its worth it) Check out my build thread on my new setup, may have some helpful information.
Yes, this gentleman has a great example. Its advice given like this makes me genuinely think about what he's saying.
Thats a good question. I would say starting with dry rock instead of live and dipping/inspecting every piece of coral I introduced. Part of the reason I upgraded to a 20 gallon was that I had been fighting a long battle with Bryopsis and it had taken over half the tank which I'm pretty sure came from a frag plug.... (I had also been wanting to upgrade for a while but that sped up the process)
I have never had any frags or important corals save for one purple leather coral and I really don't know what to look for so it would be dying with something I've never heard of. Pretty sure I've got the lighting right but that's about it.Thats a good question. I would say starting with dry rock instead of live and dipping/inspecting every piece of coral I introduced. Part of the reason I upgraded to a 20 gallon was that I had been fighting a long battle with Bryopsis and it had taken over half the tank which I'm pretty sure came from a frag plug.... (I had also been wanting to upgrade for a while but that sped up the process)
Reason for dry rock instead of live is that I could avoid unwanted hitch hikers. (vermetid snails, bristleworms etc.)
Once my tank got mature and pieces really started to grow and color up I got lax on my water changes which caught up to me. I have learned from my mistakes in the past and incorporated them all in my new build.
Thanks for the kind words on the tank. It was a trip down memory lane seeing how it progressed over time.
Bryopsis is a type of nuisance algae that is super difficult to get rid of. Not a lot of fish or inverts consume it and manual removal with water changes doesn't really work as it spreads across your rocks like a web. People have success by treating it with fluconazole but I never tried. I've had Green Hair Algae (GHA), Film Algae (bright green that was in some of my pics) Diatoms, Cyanobacteria, you name it everyone has bad some of them.
So what cures have you used so far in your experience?
I think it was an emperor angelfish? I know I had a coral beauty too before
I actually found a lot of reefers on here are children. I know I'm one but there's a lot on this forum that are extremely educated on reefing too!
When I've had outbreaks in the past I have never tried to make drastic changes to fight it. That usually makes it worse or you will begin to have other issues. The majority of the time, algae outbreaks have to do with overstocking, overfeeding, lack of maintenance or lighting spectrum. One thing that I do when dealing with algae and I now dose it everyday is Phytoplankton. I use Algaebarn's ocean magik and its awesome. Corals love it and it does the trick when fighting off nuisance algae.
