Stocking List and or Advice

[Cayden3]

Hi, I'm pretty new and I've just started looking at the equipment and lighting so that I can be a tank soon. It is a dual corner flow system of 220 g with a sump of 125 g. Now the list of fish I have looked on the internet and the LFS and thought was sweet.The list includes black & white ocellaris clowns, gold stripe maroon clowns, flame angel, copper band butterflyfish, springeri dotty back, green mandarin, flame hawkfish, yellow tang, chevron tang, chillies tang, harlequin tusk, and some big angelfish. Now I want some kind of an eel and she wants a golden puffer.
Are either or any of these are going to have problems? Since I'm fairly new have been reading books and hitting
forums I have seen different fish. Is there something better for beginners, are they personal favorites, have a lot of character, or are they more colorful? I'm willing to hear and warn about anything that's brought up. I'm going to have a FOWLR tank because of the types of fish I like because I'm not friendly with the reef.Also I would like to have anemone for the clowns if possible. Please any help is appreciated just kinda want to get all information before I dive into this head first.

 

[Alex.M.]

Im new as well but I have worked at my local Zoo in the aquatics department for over 6 months. First I will say that you need to stay to the rule of "One inch of fish per 5 gallons". This means that when you are picking fish you need to look at their adult size to see what the true sizing of that fish is. For example most clowns in stores are only 1/2 inch to 1 inch but most clowns get to be around 3 to 4 inches, thus one clown takes about 25 gallons of water. Now the reason we stick to this rule but large aquariums and zoos do not, is because they run constant maintenance and very large and expensive equipment that is not available to the public. Long story short, you have too many fish selected. Also some of the fish listed tend to be aggressive when crowded (like clowns).

For the eel, I would not put an eel with any species besides invertebrates. My personal experience with a spotted eel and green eel has shown me that even if you feed them and give them plenty of space in a tank, they will still take bites out of most fish (besides large groupers). One experience I saw first hand was with a small 1 foot spotted eel that we housed with a small shark. Guests complained that the tank looked boring because all the shark and eel did was lay around. So the zoo director decided to place them in the reef tank and change their tank to a lion fish tank. The day after this change took place, when I showed up at the zoo, we noticed that all of our fully grown tangs, angel fish and a few other species were either dead, or dying with small bites taken out of their bodies.

Now if you really want an eel, I say go for it. I love eels, they have great personalities and love to people watch. However in the tank, I would only put a large puffer (about 10 inches) and a small/medium grouper (about 8 inches) along with a small eel (the eel needs to be the smallest of the three fish). The eel needs to know that it is not top boss of the tank unless you want dead fish on your hands.