Fish compatibility

[sptfyre51]

My 30 g tank finished cycling a couple of weeks ago and I have began to slowly add fish. Right now there is 2 clownfish and a peppermint shrimp.
The other fish I would like to add are yellow watchman goby with a pistol shrimp, a royal gramma, and a sixline wrasse. These will be fine right?
Also from what I've read I will want to add the sixline wrasse last, but does it matter add the goby/shrimp and royal gramma in any order?
And lastly with those fish is there any type of crab I would have to worry about attacking my fish or shrimp?

 

[smallreef]

Yes your choices are good, and yes the 6line last , the gramma before him...and he's you could have crabs...like emerald or strawberries and they shouldn't mess with anything else...

 

[jay0705]

I agree. I have almost the same mix minus the 6 line. They eat copepods, I wanted/ have a mandarin so I skipped the wrasse. But the gramma and clowns mix well. They were my first 3 fish I added.

 

[sptfyre51]

Ok thank you. Emerald and strawberry crabs are fine. Would I be ok with crabs any bigger say an arrow crab?

 

[jay0705]

I've heard mixed things on arrow crabs. Hopefully somebody else Chims in. I've avoided them BC I have heard bigger ones can eat fish

 

[saxman]

Arrow crabs are indeed predatory, and can take down fish.
As for emeralds, once they get some size on them, they'll do the same thing. Sally lightfoots (lightfeet?) will also eat fish.
To be honest, I'd stick with scarlet reef hermits (Paguristes cadenati)...they're about as docile as crabs come, and is the only species of crab we use in our CUCs. They're also pretty...bight red with bright yellow eyestalks.

 

[sptfyre51]

Ok thank you. I really like crabs, but not enough to risk my fish. I'll probably try that out then. What else do you have in your CUC other than scarlet reef hermits? I have a 30 g tank, don't have any CUC in there now as it is a new tank so there isn't much to clean up but for future purposes I'm not exactly sure how much I would need and what works best. The reef packs on websites seem to go a little overkill on the number they have in the pack

 

[saxman]

You're absolutely right...those "packages" generally give you too many critters, and sometimes, IME, the wrong critters for certain jobs.
We run a mix of snails...Astrea, Nerite (the tan snails with black carat-shaped markings are the least intertidal), and Cerith for algae, Nassarius for detritus and carrion, and scarlet reef hermits as omnivores. We only add turbos sparingly if any HA shows up.
Always start kinda light, then see which snails are doing a good job for you by eating what your particular tank grows. Then you can bump up the species you like.
To begin with, I'd be looking at 1 algae-eater per 3 gals, so for your tank, you could go with maybe a dozen snails...I'd go with 4-4-4 of those species, then maybe 3 Nassarius and 3 hermits. You'll likely end up with some good hitchhikers such as Stomatella, limpets, bristleworms, etc that will help out as well.
Another reason for going "light" on your CUC is that a new tank may not have much to offer in the way of food, and if you overstock your CUC, they will just end up starving back to what your tank will support, which is money down the drain.
Here's an article on choosing CUC critters that may help:
http://www.lionfishlair.com/cuc/cuc.shtml

 

[sptfyre51]

Thank you that helps a lot and the article really helped as I think bumblebee snails look cool and would have bought a couple of those so it's nice to know they can be trouble

 

[saxman]

Oddly enuff, I had some BB snails (I think the LFS sold me a half dozen "back in the day"), and a couple of them lived like 10 years. They didn't really harm anything that I know of, but it's important to know they are predatory and won't help clean your tank of algae.