Hello Everyone. New Owner of 100 Gallon Aquarium

[Nathaniel Swangton]

Hello everyone ,

My name is Nathaniel and I'm 18. I'll be an owner of a 100 gallon saltwater aquarium. I would like some suggestion of of type of predator fish would be good for this aquarium. I'm a first time saltwater aquarium keeper. I am willing to take criticism. I know I sound crazy but I have worked with predator fish before. Although it was only for a 3 weeks. A friend's banded Cat Shark wouldn't feed. I got it to feed by giving the little baby more hides and small food items.

 

[lmforbis]

In a 100 gallon you will be limited in the type of preds you can keep. A smaller species of lionfish, a scorpion fish, a small species of moray (need a tight cover)A lot of preds get pretty big so no sharks, probably not a trigger.
Predator fish tend to produce a lot of waste so you can't keep many.

 

[jay0705]

Agreed with above. Every time i hear pred tank i cringe. The fish just get too big for most tanks. Even then choosing tank mates is dicey

 

[geridoc]

Hi, Nathaniel. Welcome to the board, and to marine fishkeeping. As you can see from the replies above, you will always get the unvarnished truth here, without the snarkiness often found at other sites. It helps that nobody on this site is interested in selling you anything - we are only concerned with your success. Early in my salt water hobby life (that is, about 40 years ago) I had a 55 gallon aggressive tank: niger trigger, volitans lionfish, leopard grouper, ribbon eel, etc. Every night was "fun" watching who was trying to eat whom. Back then I didn't know so much about water quality (nobody did) and had constant hassles with algae, elevated ammonia, etc. A 100 gallon tank is not very large for a predator tank - most predators get very large, assuming you can keep control of the water quality so they can thrive and grow. You might take a look at dwarf lionfish, some of the smaller eels (tight lid, please) and perhaps one of the smaller triggers. In other words, what most of us refer as an aggressive tank. Keep asking questions and possible fish selections for comment. You'll get there.

 

[Nathaniel Swangton]

I think I want to go with an eel only tank but the problem is the 100 gallon tank I could not get because it was only for local pickup. I would really love an eel tank, as I'm not really interested in other fish. Any suggestions?

 

[jay0705]

You need a tank with no escape routes. A smaller eel like a snow flake would be fine in a 75.

 

[Jesterrace]

The snowflake eel is definitely what you are looking for as it will fit in your tank and is fairly noob friendly. I too had dreams of a small shark when I first started researching saltwater aquariums, until I saw how much work and how insanely expensive they are. You will need to plan on dedicating the tank just to the single snowflake eel though in terms of of fish/eels/ect, although it is the only one listed on live aquaria as being able to be good about not nipping at corals.

Here is a pic and description of one from Live Aquaria:

http://www.***********.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+29+131&pcatid=131