jbrinker
New Member
Restocking my formerly dormant reef tank... Now I guess a FWLR tank until I get some corals again...
Specs: 55gal, 100+ lbs live rock, been up 6+ years moved ~6mos ago and re-aquascaped. 1" aragonite sand (decorative). Adding a 30 gallon sump/fuge with DSB in a week or two. CPR Backpak skimmer for now (with new powerhead works much better now!). Lighting is 2x 10K HO, 2x 6500 NO, 2x actinic NO. Gonna upgrade, not sure to what tho...
Cleanup crew consists of ~10-15 small blue-leg hermits, ~5-10 small round snails, 2 BIG mexican turbos, and two "turbin shaped triangle" big "turbo snails".
After the most recent move, at about 3 months stable, we started off with a cleaner shrimp and a sailfin tang. Bad choice, I (now) know. The tang was REAL small (like quarter size) so i thought he'd be OK, but he never did eat much and we lost him after about 2 weeks. The shrimp is fine (and a pig).
A few weeks ago, after tripple checking everything and switching over to Walmart RO water from the Culligan machine, we decided to add a pair of juv false-percula clowns. They are great, very healthy, and fun.
Looking for suggestions to fill out the fish crew, keeping in mind I ultimately want to keep soft corals at a minimum, and perhaps get into LPS at some point.
I was thinking, in addition to the two clowns, (Not necessarily all of these, just ideas)
- Royal Gramma (do they actually come out or do they hide alot?)
- I like "jawfish" and other goby-type diggers, especially if they come out sometimes. Have been reading about pistol shrimp + goby, that seems cool. Will a pistol get along with my cleaner?
- Firefish blenny - do these have to be bought in multiples? LFS says so...
- Some sort of dwarf angel - Have had flame, coral beauty, lemonpeel in the past. LFS had a "pygmy" but it was soooo small!
- I WAS thinking a tang of some sort, kinda have re-thought that tho...
- Maybe a little school of some soft of small fish? Chromis? Not sure here...
Basically, Id like to have a "wide variety" of different looks/colors/personalities on my future reef...
Thoughts???
Also, lighting... PC, T5, T8HO, VHO (t12), or MH? My gawd, its even worse than it was 5 years ago when I got out of this the first time..
Im big into DIY, so I can retrofit whatever I want. Im kinda leaning toward either plain vanilla VHO or the new T5 stuff. MH would be nice, but its a LOT of heat and the bulb replacements.... $$$. I dunno, thoughts anyone?
Thanks!!!!
Jeff
Specs: 55gal, 100+ lbs live rock, been up 6+ years moved ~6mos ago and re-aquascaped. 1" aragonite sand (decorative). Adding a 30 gallon sump/fuge with DSB in a week or two. CPR Backpak skimmer for now (with new powerhead works much better now!). Lighting is 2x 10K HO, 2x 6500 NO, 2x actinic NO. Gonna upgrade, not sure to what tho...
Cleanup crew consists of ~10-15 small blue-leg hermits, ~5-10 small round snails, 2 BIG mexican turbos, and two "turbin shaped triangle" big "turbo snails".
After the most recent move, at about 3 months stable, we started off with a cleaner shrimp and a sailfin tang. Bad choice, I (now) know. The tang was REAL small (like quarter size) so i thought he'd be OK, but he never did eat much and we lost him after about 2 weeks. The shrimp is fine (and a pig).
A few weeks ago, after tripple checking everything and switching over to Walmart RO water from the Culligan machine, we decided to add a pair of juv false-percula clowns. They are great, very healthy, and fun.
Looking for suggestions to fill out the fish crew, keeping in mind I ultimately want to keep soft corals at a minimum, and perhaps get into LPS at some point.
I was thinking, in addition to the two clowns, (Not necessarily all of these, just ideas)
- Royal Gramma (do they actually come out or do they hide alot?)
- I like "jawfish" and other goby-type diggers, especially if they come out sometimes. Have been reading about pistol shrimp + goby, that seems cool. Will a pistol get along with my cleaner?
- Firefish blenny - do these have to be bought in multiples? LFS says so...
- Some sort of dwarf angel - Have had flame, coral beauty, lemonpeel in the past. LFS had a "pygmy" but it was soooo small!
- I WAS thinking a tang of some sort, kinda have re-thought that tho...
- Maybe a little school of some soft of small fish? Chromis? Not sure here...
Basically, Id like to have a "wide variety" of different looks/colors/personalities on my future reef...
Thoughts???
Also, lighting... PC, T5, T8HO, VHO (t12), or MH? My gawd, its even worse than it was 5 years ago when I got out of this the first time..
Im big into DIY, so I can retrofit whatever I want. Im kinda leaning toward either plain vanilla VHO or the new T5 stuff. MH would be nice, but its a LOT of heat and the bulb replacements.... $$$. I dunno, thoughts anyone?
Thanks!!!!
Jeff