first fish for reef tank?

[lobstergrabber]

My tank finished cyling about 5 days ago and I am looking for that first fish. I want a peaceful tank(though I know a certain amount of bickering is to be expected). I put a six line wrasse on hold to pick up next week. Is this a good first fish in everyone's opinion. Everyone that talks about having one seems to love them and the books say they are docile and relatively hardy.
Rich

 

[ty_05_f]

I say Clown is the way to go. But a sixline would be nice too. I was going to get one, but decided on another fish. They are very colorful and quick.

 

[vibe]

six line wrasse is definatly not a bad way to start. the colors and behavior make the six line wrasse a perfect reef tank fish. good luck

 

[lobstergrabber]

thanks for the replies. I plan on and make correction if you think this list needs work.
1. six line wrasse
2&3 watchman goby
4. 2 Percula clowns
5. yellow tang(granted I can find a very small one)
6. psychedelic(sp?) Mandarin goby
I plan on adding them starting next week with the six line about one every 2 weeks till the tang is in. I am slowly ordering pumps and such to set up a refugium. Then hopefully After around 6 months or so I will be able to safely get the mandarin. Everything else will be invert. The only fish I am worried about being mean is the tang for that reason he is 5 on the list and not 1 or 2. I wanted to some chromis but my 55 is not big enough with the others I want. So I will just make up with lots of corals.
Rich

 

[vibe]

actually, you might be ok with a small school of chromis, they dont get very big(depending on which ones you want. btw, it might be a good thing taht the yellow tang is inroduced close to last. that way he doesnt have territory to guard. but the choice in fish sounds good to me. your tank will more than likely be very successful. good luck

 

[lobstergrabber]

thank you vibe.
Hopefully I will have alto more rock to finish my setup here real soon and the fish go in smoothly. I am definitely going to use swf.com acclimation procedure. I have some crabs and a couple anemones that were on rocks I bought and some coral someone gave me that are thriving but I bouhgt a little horeshoe crab and the lady at the lfs said not to worry about dripping water or anything just float it for 30 minutes. Turned up dead after 2 days and the water still checks good. I was bummed out but lesson learned.
Rich

 

[vibe]

sounds good to me.

 

[leigh]

That's a long list for a 55! I think you'd be fine with the six line, the goby, and the clowns. Once you get over 4-5 fish in a 55 you're likely to start having territory issues. The tang really deserves more swimming room than a 55 and the mandarin will be very hard to sustain enough pods for in a 55 unless you can setup a very, very active refugium and have an organized method with which to get pods from the fuge into the main tank. Even so though, if you already have 4 other fish in the tank depleting the pod population you will have a bear of a time keeping a mandarin healthy.
Just my 2c
-leigh

 

[lobstergrabber]

Leigh,
I am setting up a fuge right now that should end up being 15 gallons. With the addition of the sump of around the same size abundance of water turnover should not be and issue. I have all but talked myself out of the mandarin but I truly want one very badly. Maybe in a nano later. That is the fish I started the salt tank for. As far as the tang I know they will grow but I plan to start with a tiny one if possible and hopefully he will be moved to a bigger tank in about a year and a half. Thank you for your input though. I am still trying to soak all the available knowledge up without overload.
Rich

 

[leigh]

In terms of tank size for a mandarin I would actually consider going the opposite direction from a nano. I did a lot of research into a mandarin for my system (like you I really love them) and I thought I had the perfect system for it. I intended to make a mandarin be the only fish in the system which has 100 gallons between my reef and my invert tank and nearly 100 lbs of live rock between the two. However, the group consensus was that a mandarin requires at least 100 lbs of live rock to graze on (directly in it's tank) otherwise you are likely to starve it. Even if you can get pods in the water, the fish will only be looking for them in the rock. My personal recommendation again would be to hold off on the mandarin until you can get the bigger tank as well. Think how terrific a refugium that 55 gal tank would make for a 125 gal tank! Then you could be in pod heaven and have a very happy tang and mandarin long term!