New Member, but Another Stocking Thread...

[bigfish77]

Hey I am a new member here looking to do my research before getting my hopes up. Brief bio, I am expert freshwater aquarist keeping all species imaginable haps, SA cichlids, african cichilds, community, aggressive, and so called king fish Discus. Display tanks and even breeding of Discus. I have some salt experience, yet it has been long time. I want to get into salt and do a fish only tank or fish only tank with some live rock. No corals or inverts. I know plenty of questions will arise, but I am thinking 210 gallon standard tank. Here is a stock list, filtration is unknown yet, but just curious if species could work. I am putting more then I would expect to work but limited to small amount of predator fish. I am just trying to educate myself so please be nice! Tried to stick to easy fish commonly available.

210 Gallon Tank "Fish Only"
Tangs

Purple Tang -1

Blonde Naso -1

Hipo Tang -3

Butterfly

Raccoon Butterfly -3

Angel Fish

Flame Angel -3

Annularis Angelfish-1

Wrasse

Harlequin tusk- 1

Trigger

Picasso Trigger-1

Puffer

Stripped Dogface-1

 

[lmforbis]

I started in a similar way with fresh. Once I got discus breeding it seemed salt was the next step. That was almost 20 years ago. With a 210 you have a lot of options. Stick with the live rock. Live rock is the filtration system and the place the fish will make their homes. All are reef fish and most are wild caught they will be more comfortable in a setting where they have the rock to hide in. You can start with mostly dry rock and a little live. The rest will become live while the tank cycles without fish for the first month or two.
You can't stock the way you can for fresh water. The numbers of fish will be much lower and you have to pay attention to the part of the tank the fish occupy as well as temperament and their contribution to the bioload.
It is very important to quarantine all salt water fish for at least 30 days and treat for diseases that crop up. It just takes one fish with a disease to wipe out the whole tank.

As for your list in a 210 the tangs should be fine if they behave. But only one of each.

Butterflies are beautiful but timid. They can be hard to get eating in captivity. Once in the large tank, They often have a hard time competing for food with the more aggressive fish. These I believe are fine in groups of three, they are not very aggressive but you already have a large bioload so I'd go with one.

Angels are typically 1 per tank. One flame angel. With a 210 you might be able to do 2 dwarves say a flame and coral beauty, but only one of each species. It would be a crap shoot though. Personally I'd only do one dwarf angel. The angularis should be fine as far as living with the flame

Usually you don't stock triggers with puffers. The triggers go for the puffers eyes, they must look like snails to them.

When adding fish to a salt water tank you need to first fully cycle the tank, this takes 1-2 months. Then you add fish one or two at a time to allow the bacteria to adjust to the bioload. Ammonia is much more toxic in a marine aquarium because of the high pH of the water. The bacteria level needs to adjust to each addition. Then add in the order of least aggressive to most aggressive. This allows more timid fish to establish territory first.

 

[jay0705]

If you do want a trigger look into blue jaws. The only issue w your tangs could be the purple. Absolutely a beautiful fish, but one of the most aggressive. I have in the past seen them chasing a naso. Naso tangs tho very passive except with other naso tangs.
Imforbis covered the rest