der_kluge
01/12/2008, 09:45 PM
I'm pretty new to the hobby, so use simple words. :)
I live in Tulsa, and those that follow the news know that we got hit by a bad ice storm about a month ago. We had no power for 3 days. My Hippo Tang was the first to die, followed by the Royal Gramma (I assume - it hid, and I couldn't find it, turns out it somehow managed to get into my sump pump return tray). Then finally the Yellow Tang died, which surprised me a bit, since he was the largest fish I had.
Two Percula clowns lived, as well as my scooter blenny and my complement of shrimp and cleaning crew all lived, as well as a Choc. chip starfish.
FOWLR tank, BTW.
On the 3rd day, I took the survivors in a 5 gallon bucket with a single piece of rock and a maxijet to work and kept them there until the power came back on the next day. Gave me a chance to clean the tank out in any case.
But we're looking at re-populating. My wife and oldest daughter (4) want another "Dory" (Hippo) back, which I'm inclined to do if I can find one cheap enough.
Here's the setup:
FOWLR 55 gallon
2 clownfish (I think they're a mated pair - they hang out together all the time, and we bought them together). They get along "swimmingly" :)
1 red skunk cleaner shrimp - he's bored. No one to clean. He was constantly cleaning the Hippo Tang, but now that she's gone, he's got nothing to do. Clownfish never get cleaned it seems.
2 peppermint shrimp. I don't have any aptasia that I'm aware of. I just think they're cool.
3 scarlet reef hermit crabs
3 snails
1 red sea cucumber - boring
1 chocolate chip starfish
1 scooter blenny
Today we just added a pencil sea urchin. Which seems like a mildly interesting thing to watch.
We're into interesting fish. Clownfish are, IMHO, kind of boring. They don't seem to do much. I'm not terribly interested in replacing my Royal Gramma. It stayed hid most of the time. The Yellow Tang was mildly interesting.
Right now I'm fighting an outbreak of cyanobacteria(sp), so as soon as that clears up, I'll be looking at getting an anemone for the clowns (probably a quadricolor).
Eventually, I want to make it a reef tank, and I'm aware that we'll have to give up our starfish when I do that, but that's not a big deal.
I want some recommendations for "interesting" fish - whatever that means. Ideally, it's reef safe and won't eat my shrimp (rules out hawkfish, I think) and obviously predators won't work.
What are some interesting fish? It doesn't even have to be a fish. Spiny sea urchins might be interesting, or even something like a slug or some other kind of invert.
I live in Tulsa, and those that follow the news know that we got hit by a bad ice storm about a month ago. We had no power for 3 days. My Hippo Tang was the first to die, followed by the Royal Gramma (I assume - it hid, and I couldn't find it, turns out it somehow managed to get into my sump pump return tray). Then finally the Yellow Tang died, which surprised me a bit, since he was the largest fish I had.
Two Percula clowns lived, as well as my scooter blenny and my complement of shrimp and cleaning crew all lived, as well as a Choc. chip starfish.
FOWLR tank, BTW.
On the 3rd day, I took the survivors in a 5 gallon bucket with a single piece of rock and a maxijet to work and kept them there until the power came back on the next day. Gave me a chance to clean the tank out in any case.
But we're looking at re-populating. My wife and oldest daughter (4) want another "Dory" (Hippo) back, which I'm inclined to do if I can find one cheap enough.
Here's the setup:
FOWLR 55 gallon
2 clownfish (I think they're a mated pair - they hang out together all the time, and we bought them together). They get along "swimmingly" :)
1 red skunk cleaner shrimp - he's bored. No one to clean. He was constantly cleaning the Hippo Tang, but now that she's gone, he's got nothing to do. Clownfish never get cleaned it seems.
2 peppermint shrimp. I don't have any aptasia that I'm aware of. I just think they're cool.
3 scarlet reef hermit crabs
3 snails
1 red sea cucumber - boring
1 chocolate chip starfish
1 scooter blenny
Today we just added a pencil sea urchin. Which seems like a mildly interesting thing to watch.
We're into interesting fish. Clownfish are, IMHO, kind of boring. They don't seem to do much. I'm not terribly interested in replacing my Royal Gramma. It stayed hid most of the time. The Yellow Tang was mildly interesting.
Right now I'm fighting an outbreak of cyanobacteria(sp), so as soon as that clears up, I'll be looking at getting an anemone for the clowns (probably a quadricolor).
Eventually, I want to make it a reef tank, and I'm aware that we'll have to give up our starfish when I do that, but that's not a big deal.
I want some recommendations for "interesting" fish - whatever that means. Ideally, it's reef safe and won't eat my shrimp (rules out hawkfish, I think) and obviously predators won't work.
What are some interesting fish? It doesn't even have to be a fish. Spiny sea urchins might be interesting, or even something like a slug or some other kind of invert.