# Restocking my 55 gallon



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

So following last weeks debacle ending in the death of all my fish I'm now regrouping and trying to come up with a plan for stocking my tank. I'll have my sump all set up with a protein skimmer two 550 gph power heads and a good amount more rock. My first three fish were two blue damsels and a firefish. While great looking fish they ended up not being the peaceful inhabitants I hoped for. This was mainly due to one of my damsels being a big bully. I'm looking to set up a nice peaceful easy to maintain aquarium. My tentative stocking list is as follows:

Fish:
Clown Fish...prob a black and white one
Another Firefish
Royal Gramma
Bi-color Blennie
The controversial one....six line wrasse. I hear this particular one is reef safe, eats bristle worms, which I recently discovered in my tank, but that they can be aggressive

Inverts:
Nassarius snails
Margarita snails
Sand sifting star
Reef hermits

Corals: 
Zoas of various sorts
Toadstool mushrooms
Maybe some other easy ones depending on how these go

So there you have it. Comments, suggestions are welcomed and appreciated. This will be my second go of it so I'm going to make it count. I unfortunately at the expense of losing my newfound friends learned the hard way that marine aquariums require time, effort, being thorough and careful and most importantly NOT tap water.


----------



## Reefing Madness (Jun 26, 2011)

Looks good so far. But if you want the total peaceful tank, keep the 6Line out of the equation. They don't get very big, but, like the Damsels, can be little butt heads. Also, Bristle Worms are actually good things in the tank, they are kinda part of the CUC. They also let you know when you are over feeding, because the more you see the more eccess nutrients are in the tank. And that you don't want.


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

So then I prob shouldn't have pulled mine out then....he was about three inches long. I bought a few good chunks of live rock from another area pet store and their tanks were admittedly not nearly as clean as the one I had been going to and I believe he hitched a ride into my tank. I found him eating one of my dead fish :shock:.


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

Would the blue/green reef chromis be an acceptable substitute for the wrasse? Live Aquaria claims they're peaceful and reef safe


----------



## Reefing Madness (Jun 26, 2011)

Chromis are cool fish. But they will chase each other around, not other fish.


----------



## Reefing Madness (Jun 26, 2011)

evanlundberg4 said:


> So then I prob shouldn't have pulled mine out then....he was about three inches long. I bought a few good chunks of live rock from another area pet store and their tanks were admittedly not nearly as clean as the one I had been going to and I believe he hitched a ride into my tank. I found him eating one of my dead fish :shock:.


 Believe me, you have alot more than jus tthe one you pulle out, no worries. And yea, they will munch on all kinds of garbage in the tank thats left behind. They will also, devour dead fish along with the help of the other CUC.


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

Well I could use more cuc members. My sand had been getting a brownish coating on it until I added a couple nassarius snails last week and they've been doing a pretty bang up job stirring up the sand. I cut back my feedings in an effort to help keep it cleaner. 

I'll prob end up adding a chromis to my stocking list for the tank. My goal is a handful of smaller colorful fish.


----------



## MiamiLeos (Sep 11, 2011)

Theres a thread somewhere that shows a good guideline on how to stock a tank. It's basically like this: for every 15 gallons of water, you can have 2 members of group A fish and 1 species of group B fish. Group A are the fish that generally stay close to/in the rock (basslets, gobies, dottybacks, jawfish, etc.) Group B are fish that swim more and like some open water space (clowns, dwarf angels, chromis, cardinalfish, anthias, blennies, wrasse, etc.)

I have a 57 gallon and I plan to stock it something like this:

Group A-
Yellow Watchman Goby 1
Royal Gramma Basslet 1
Manderin Dragonet 1
some sort of Dottyback 1

Group B-
O. Clowns 2
Blue/Green Reef Chromis 3ish
Flame Hawkfish 1
Powder Blue Tang 1 (this I obviously wouldn't advise unless your LFS assures you that you can trade it in once it gets too big for the tank)

Again, this is just what I've come up with on paper, not necessarily what I will end up with, but it can give you an idea.


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

Dude that would be a pretty sick set up. I love those tangs but like you said they would end up to big. I'll see if I can dig up that thread. Any idea what I could find it under? I'm going for the most colorful but also most peaceful aquarium I can have. Also everything needs to be reef safe and might go light on the fishes to keep the bio-load low as at some point I'm definitely planning on corals.


----------



## MiamiLeos (Sep 11, 2011)

Yea, I'm deff going full reef too. Not totally set on what corals I want yet. I already have about 8 blue leg hermits and one lonely turbo snail. I'm for sure getting a few more turbos and a couple nassarius and prob a shrimp of some kind for the goby. Found the thread. It's a really good read 

http://www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/...h-compatability-creating-stocking-list-38579/


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

The nassarius snails are great. I have two and they are doing a great job cleaning up my substrate. They dig around like crazy. Thanks for the info on the fishes!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## wake49 (Jul 2, 2008)

MiamiLeos said:


> Theres a thread somewhere that shows a good guideline on how to stock a tank. It's basically like this: for every 15 gallons of water, you can have 2 members of group A fish and 1 species of group B fish. Group A are the fish that generally stay close to/in the rock (basslets, gobies, dottybacks, jawfish, etc.) Group B are fish that swim more and like some open water space (clowns, dwarf angels, chromis, cardinalfish, anthias, blennies, wrasse, etc.)
> 
> I have a 57 gallon and I plan to stock it something like this:
> 
> ...


Marine fish compatability, creating a stocking list

I think this is the list she is referring to.

And I would never add a fish to a tank that you don't plan to make its permanent home. Even from day one a tank that is too small for a fish can be detrimental to its health.


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

I added my two clowns and Royal Gramma today. The Gramma was pretty worked up and took him about half an hour to come into it after the ride home and acclimation and stuff. He eventually found a rock he likes and settled in. The clowns seemed to be alright with the whole process. However they are up swimming all around in the tank seemingly restless. I guess this coups be attributed to being netted and then transported and such. Just seems odd at night though. They all ate this evening. I just fed a few little mysis shrimp to see if they were interested.
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Tazman (Jan 15, 2012)

evanlundberg4 said:


> The clowns seemed to be alright with the whole process. However they are up swimming all around in the tank seemingly restless. I guess this coups be attributed to being netted and then transported and such. Just seems odd at night though.
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Hence why they get the name clownfish, mine do it all the time and in fact most clowns do it.
Mine spent 20 mins when I was watching the tv before just darting around my powerhead in what seemed to be a game of "you lose if you get hit by the 750gph current"


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

Haha...funny you mention that because my power head is their main focal point. I had no idea they were that active. Fun to watch!
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Tazman (Jan 15, 2012)

mine spend all the time near one of my powerheads although they have just been made homeless as my mexican turbo snail has decided it likes it and wants the corner of the tank where it is.

Am going to try and get them to host my anemone even though it might be too small yet, they have been getting closer to it recently.


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

That's sweet! I'm going to try and master the fish and a few easy soft corals first but I would love to have an anemone for them to host in. how would you go about encouraging them to host in it? Or does it just happen?
_Posted via Mobile Device_


----------



## Tazman (Jan 15, 2012)

They might do it themselves or you can actually stick a picture of clownfish in an anemone onto the outside of the tank and this has been known to make them host.

My anemone is quite small though, so they may not host as it doesnt offer much "protection" for them.


----------



## Reefing Madness (Jun 26, 2011)

Ya gotta watch that. If the Nem is to small the fish can actually beat the crap out of it. Wai til you see them boucing in and out of it.


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

If you don't mind me asking what do you feed your clowns? mine will take mysis shrimp pretty readily but the grab a bit of a flake and spit it out.


----------



## wake49 (Jul 2, 2008)

evanlundberg4 said:


> If you don't mind me asking what do you feed your clowns? mine will take mysis shrimp pretty readily but the grab a bit of a flake and spit it out.


I prefer Marine One Pellets with Garlic.


----------



## Tazman (Jan 15, 2012)

Marine one pellets with Garlic, flake food and mysis shrimp for my clowns.

They usually dont really eat the flakes, maybe a few, but mysis shrimp is gone in seconds. My shrimp takes care of the rest of the flakes if the clowns dont want them.


----------



## evanlundberg4 (Aug 27, 2012)

Yeah this is what they're doing to me as well. I ordered some of those pellets to try as well. Granted this is their second day here so I suppose its a good sign they're eating at all. They are really weird fish man. Yesterday wouldn't touch the flakes and this morning too but this afternoon they couldn't be bothered with the shrimp. My Royal Gramma pigged out on them. I threw in one crumbled flake and they gobbled it down. They also have been picking most of the day at little algae bits. :|


----------

