Help making 1st fish order

[woody189]

Hi. This is my first tank ever. its a 46 gal bowfront and it's currently cycling w/ 45lbs of fiji LR, and aragonite sand.
I guess I didn't rinse off the rock enough before putting it in, but there is a lot of detrius settling on my sand.
I don't have too many good fish stores around here, and snails are like 3-4$$ a piece and on this site you can get like 10 for 15$$. the thing is that the shipping requirements kill the deal.
I want to get a diamond goby, but i want to also have snails and an emerald crab (maybe 3 because they come 3 for 10$ [they were 13$$ in the store for 1]). would there be any problems w/ them?? I also want to add more gobies to my tank because they are cheap and look pretty good, bad idea??
anyway, would it be okay for me to order 1 diamond goby, 2 percula clowns, 3 emerald crabs, 10 nass snails, and 10 turbos?? and a cleaner shrimp $5!!!! I'm doing this because I'm not plannin on ordering $80 worth of stuff to meet the shipping minimum again so im stocking up.
I would put hte clean up crew in all at once and EITHER the goby or 2 clowns in the DT and whatever i keep out i'll keep in the QT. I'll feed the inverts whatever supplement you need considering there won't be enough junk in the tank w/ only 1 fish. I dont' mind getting another goby, i like basically all the shrimp gobies. Can i have more than one as long as they arent the same (ex 2 yellow watchmen)? and firefish are awesome, but i saw some at my LFS also.
i can get the clowns around here for roughly the same price so i'm think maybe i'll hold off ont hem and get something a little harder to find while i'm ordering online, any other suggestions?? maybe a mandarin goby, or is my tank not established enough and would it fight w/ other fish??
does this sound like a plan or am i doing something wrong??
I love/hate this site. Love cause you help so much, hate cause if i never found it, i'd be $600 richer.
thanks

 

[trigger11]

Originally Posted by woody189
http:///forum/post/2504871
Hi. This is my first tank ever. its a 46 gal bowfront and it's currently cycling w/ 45lbs of fiji LR, and aragonite sand.
I guess I didn't rinse off the rock enough before putting it in, but there is a lot of detrius settling on my sand.
I don't have too many good fish stores around here, and snails are like 3-4$$ a piece and on this site you can get like 10 for 15$$. the thing is that the shipping requirements kill the deal.
I want to get a diamond goby, but i want to also have snails and an emerald crab (maybe 3 because they come 3 for 10$ [they were 13$$ in the store for 1]). would there be any problems w/ them?? I also want to add more gobies to my tank because they are cheap and look pretty good, bad idea??
anyway, would it be okay for me to order 1 diamond goby, 2 percula clowns, 3 emerald crabs, 10 nass snails, and 10 turbos?? and a cleaner shrimp $5!!!! I'm doing this because I'm not plannin on ordering $80 worth of stuff to meet the shipping minimum again so im stocking up.
I would put hte clean up crew in all at once and EITHER the goby or 2 clowns in the DT and whatever i keep out i'll keep in the QT. I'll feed the inverts whatever supplement you need considering there won't be enough junk in the tank w/ only 1 fish. I dont' mind getting another goby, i like basically all the shrimp gobies. Can i have more than one as long as they arent the same (ex 2 yellow watchmen)? and firefish are awesome, but i saw some at my LFS also.
i can get the clowns around here for roughly the same price so i'm think maybe i'll hold off ont hem and get something a little harder to find while i'm ordering online, any other suggestions?? maybe a mandarin goby, or is my tank not established enough and would it fight w/ other fish??
does this sound like a plan or am i doing something wrong??
I love/hate this site. Love cause you help so much, hate cause if i never found it, i'd be $600 richer.
thanks
You have lots of questions there. I'll try my best to help. As a reference for later I have found you can get better results by only asking one question per thread. Otherwise some questions end up getting missed.
First, I would advise you to slow way down. Patience is a virtue in this hobby and moving too fast usually only causes troubles. Having said that I would focus on getting your cleanup crew established first. In a 46bow you could start with like 10 turbo snails and 10-15 blue legged hermit crabs. Then wait a week and put in the cleaner shrimp if you still want one of them. I have one and I think he is pretty darn cool. I want to get a couple more. I would definitely wait a while before adding any gobies though. It would be good to let the sand get a little more mature since they are sandsifters. Some people would argue not to get any sandsifters at all. Also, some of the gobies are jumpers so keep that in mind. Need to have a well secured top.
Two clownfish would go nicely in there. But definitely give the clean up crew some time to work. I dont recall reading if your tank went through the diatom algae bloom stage yet?
There are some other fish that would be suitable to add later down the road so that will give you some time to do some research on here. I recommend reading in the Fish section on these boards.
Oh, I almost forgot. Odds are that you would not be able to support a mandarin. Tanks needs to mature for at least 6 months in order to get enough of a copepod population for it to eat. If you were to get set up with a refugium then you could get one sooner. The other possibility would be to buy one that you know will eat prepared foods. Like mysis shrimp. In any event you should definitely wait a few months before even considering it.
Hope that helps and welcome to the most addictive hobby on the planet.

 

[theclemsonkid]

Hey there, just thought I would give you my two cents.
As far as gobies go, I certainly would wait until you get some pods in your sand. When I was a newbie, I made the mistake of buying a mandarin because it looked so freakin' cool, not to mention it was pretty inexpensive.
About a month later it was starving to death because there wasn't enough food for it to eat in the sand. I just gave up and donated it to the LFS and they threw it in their frag tank where it still resides almost a year later

Like the previous poster said, take it slow. Unfortunately for most newbies, it takes losing an expensive fish, or a complete tank crash to get them to slow down in most cases.
I know it's hard to listen, but I promise if you can take the first few months slowly, you will save money, time, frustration... and gain and overall appreciation for this hobby.
- Take care and welcome aboard!
-Jonathan

 

[sepulatian]

Vacuum the sand lightly during water changes. Your tank is not ready for a bulk order yet. Be sure that your qt is cycled. They may or may not need treatment. You will never be able to support a mandarin in a 46 bow. I am not saying that to discourage you, but facts are facts. Even with a fuge you will not be able to. They may accept frozen, but will die from being malnourished. Forget the mandarin. There are plenty of other nice fish that you can buy. Think about what you want, not what is on sale, or cheap at the moment. Get a stock list together and we will help you with what will work.

 

[wfd1008]

you could ask on here if anyone knows of a good lfs in your area.

 

[krautburner]

Tanks needs to mature for at least 6 months in order to get enough of a copepod population for it to eat
how do you know when you have enough?
what about buying the Copepods from here? (group of 200)
also:
for the clean up crew,
and the minimum purchase,
have you considered the Reef Packages?
(I just ordered one, along with some corals, copepods, and some other little stuff)

 

[woody189]

i'm not disagreeing with you, i'm sure you all know better than i do, but i don't really see how i'm moving too fast. i know i'd be ordering a lot of stuff, but i'm not throwin them all in. I would throw a goby in w/ the clean up crew. I know the crew would be rather large, but i'll feed them if they don't have enough junk to eat.
In the mean time, my percula's would be in the QT. then after a few weeks i'll put them in the DT. How is that too fast?? I don't really understand. maybe i'll even put some of the clean up crew in the QT if i have too and feed them in there, there's no substrate in there though.
andt hat was a good question about that coepods, can i just buy them from here or should i just wait till they come on there own.
and i was just asking bout the mandarin cuz on this site it says it needs a min of 10 gal tank. buy i get that i don't have coepods so that's out.
thanks for all the help so far.
i didn't realize u said no gobies yet...any other suggestions instead??

 

[beth]

For instance, when I set up my reef tank, larger than your tank, I allowed it to remain without additions for 3 mos. Live rock cycled the tank....actually, the tank never really had ammonia or nitrite that is how stable the process was. It was teaming with life and I was never bored watching, and in having a role in cultivating the live rock fuana.
The goal should be to achieve this level of stability before adding anything else. Your tank already has micro organisms in it that you can be cultivating to full capacity. It is the worms, micro sponges, copepods, brittlestars, bristleworms, micro feather dusters, even algae, etc., that is already in your tank (thanks to live rock) that is the foundation cleaning crew of your system. Cultivate these to full capacity before introducing predators and competitors.

 

[mcbdz]

I agree with Beth's post above, but also remember being a newbie and know most will not wait that long. That said, the godies that are on the bottom will keep your sand from growing the micro fauna that your tank needs to mature. I would wait on any of those until after 6-8 months. At this early stage you will over load your young bio filter if you add too much at one time.
You should be adding all fish at first to your QT and if you don't you may have some health problems later. Your choice.
For your size tank I would look at your percs for your first fish and wait on clean up crew maybe. That way you'll have something to look at and clean your sand yourself like Sep suggested. Then, in about a month make your order of clean up package and a fish. You can add the cleanup crew and have the fish in QT.
Some suggestions for fish to check out may be:
cardinals
firefish
royal gramma
a small wrasse(six line?)
Maybe last a dwarf angel or
Fairy wrasse.