Bio-load?

[jet fixer]

Do I have a light, medium or heavy bio-load?

75 Gal mixed reef w/
Flame Wrasse pair (Cirrhilabrus jordani)
Firefish (Nemateleotris magnifica)
Rainfords Goby (Amblygobius rainfordi)

What should I add?

[Stuart60611]

Definitely light bioload. You have lots of options in terms of what to add, but I would stick to something not very aggressive because your current fish are unaggressive and anything you add which is aggressive could cause problems. Unaggresive clowns, blennies, basslets or chromis could be a good fit.

[rholguin]

+1 light bio load. You can some jawfish, wrasses, dwarf angels.

[jet fixer]

Do you think I could get away with a Mandarin and a Blue Assessor?

I'm reading through the mandarin primmer but, wouldn't the current tank mates out compete it for food?

Assessor= Assessor macneilli
Mandarin= Synchiropus splendidus

[jet fixer]

Any more inputs?

[Jmason95]

I think the Assessor would be fine. Mandarins are hard to keep, you need a steady flow of pods they can feed on.

I read that ORA will be introducing captive bread Mandarins this summer that eat prepared foods so you may want to check into that.

[small alien]

I would recommend you continue to get pairs or trios since the behavior is so much cooler imo. You could do a pair of Bangaii Cardinals. Pair of jawfish. Pair of shrimp gobies. Pair of dragonets. Not all those but those are some good pairs. Good luck.

[small alien]

That's the stocking list of my 75 below. Once I add the leopard wrasses, I'm done except for maybe one flagfin pipe. My tank is very peaceful. It has been suggested the clowns will cause trouble once they start doing their thing ;). We'll see. I'd say my bioload is heavy. I do a 10% water change once a week. Cheers.

[jet fixer]

Good input guys thanks,
blue assessor is next then. I'm quite concerned about a mandarin in my tank and supplying it with enough food. They are such gorgeous fish its too tempting, I'll need to think about it. My sump has a fuge I just don't see enough pods to feel comfortable enough to get one.

small alien, how is your tail spot? does he nip at any polyps? I was thinking of adding one my CUC keeps the algae to a minimum but all my fish are carnivores and I was thinking I should add a herbivore. (OT) I grew up in Spokane where is Carnation compared to it?

I'm going to stay away from jawfish this time around. I had a BSJ in my last tank and he ate my purple firefish. They are a great addition I just don't want him eating my Rainfords Goby. I'm also planning to add an elegance so I'm going to stay away from sand sifters and diggers in general.

Some times I think I may over plan things.

[small alien]

I think ORA does a captive bred blue assessor. Kind of pricey I believe but always better to get captive bred.

If you're wondering about the mandarin, you should definitely wait. You could do a scooter which are significantly less demanding to feed if you wanted to keep a dragonet. I have a male and three females. They dance and spawn nightly which is neat-o!

I've had two tailspots. First one starved during a black out I did to starve some hair algae. It also killed the film algae and I had no idea the blenny was so dependent on that. It ate all prepared foods well but when I turned the lights back on after several days, it was really emaciated and died soon after. :sad1:

I would not think of a tailspot or any blenny in that genus as part of your clean up crew per se. They will snack on film algae on your glass and rocks. They will not eat filamentous algae ime. I have seen mine nip some clove polyps right next to its favorite hole but I believe it was just keeping its house clear, not eating them. I've never seen it nip lps or nems, shrooms, etc. I'd say it's a very low risk reef resident over-all. And a beautiful and personable little fish.

If you haven't seen it yet, your Rainford's will sift sand. But not so much as to make a major mess. I do have to blow off my lps on the sandbed every so often. The location of the sifting moves around the tank and is pretty random. You will notice its effects though. I think it's such a cool behavior, it's well worth the little mess.

Carnation is about 20 miles east of Seattle in the Snoqualmie Valley.

Cheers.