Fish Selections

[orbulus]

Aloha!! I'm new to the boards, and hope I could get some good suggestions here on some
safe fish selections for my tank. Just a quick rundown:
- 46 Gallon
- Running about 5 Months
- No LR (illegal in Hawaii)
- No Inverts
- Wet / Dry Filter
- Protein Skimmer
- UV Sterilizer
- Wavemaker
I water change about 10 gallons every two weeks, and the water is pretty much perfect.
I have lots of artificial rocks in there for the fish to hide in. Currently, there is only one
Blue Damsel (fish I used to cycle with) and one Yellow Tang. They are both doing really
well for about two months now. I'll list below the fish available to me and that I want to
eventually add into the tank. I want to know if this is a good idea or not.
1 Royal Gramma
1 Clown (either a Percula, Tomato, Clarkii or Maroon)
1 Flame Angel
1 Longnosed Butterfly
1 Hawaiian Spotted Puffer
1 Pajama Cardinal
1 Firefish
Yup, that is about all I want in the end. Is that too many? Since Hawaii has very strict laws
about bringing in animals and plants from outside the islands, my selection is very
limited. However, some of the species are caught locally, which makes them very cheap
and available for me, such as the Puffer, Yellow Tang and the Longnosed Butterfly.
On paper, the fish selection looks good. They should all get along. But I've been reading
posts off of this forum, and getting a little worried about these fishes I am thinking about
mixing. Some posts suggest that Damsels are too aggressive, and I should take mine out
if I want to add in say, a Flame Angel or Percula Clown.
Anyway, out of all the fish I've listed, what is a good mix? Maybe take out the Blue
Damsel and don't add a Maroon Clown? But I know I'll feel bad to get rid of my loyal
Damsel. On the most part, these are the fish I really want to add. Your help would be
most welcome! :joy:
Mahalo!!

 

[lion_crazz]

Welcome to the message boards!!
I would take out the damsel because he will be aggressive and the yellow tang because he needs much more space.
An appropriate stock list would be the gramma, clown, angel, PJ cardinal, and firefish. I would not do either the butterfly or the tang because they get too large and demand too much space, and the puffer can be a bit on the aggressive side sometimes (not to mention they are a heavy bioload to your tank).

 

[orbulus]

Thanks! I've been reading posts a lot. It seems that everyone posts Tangs need much
space. And the Butterfly I heard are actually hard to keep alive for very long in captivity.
Okay, I think I'll return the Damsel. What if I replace the Damsel with a Chromis?
...hm...
Anyway, thanks. I will take you advice to heart

 

[lion_crazz]

Replacing the damsel with a chromis would be a lot better, but still may be a problem to other fish down the road.