Nano Fish

[Jmvanness]

So I'm working on my 33 long zoa garden tank and I've been contemplating different fish. Want to know what your favorite reef safe fish for the small aquarium are.

Current thoughts:

Pygmy cherub, Eibli or flame angel

firefish

Randall's goby

pygmy possum wrasse

tail spot blenny

No clowns because I don't want them hosting the zoas.

Any thoughts on some cool inverts?

Porcelain crabs

sally light foot crab

sexy shrimp

[jestep]

Be really careful with the angel. Most will take to nipping coral at some point. Flameback is probably the safest bet but none are guaranteed.

My go to fish for small tanks are royal grammas, springer's damsel, and assessor basslets. All will get along with each other. The springer's is pretty much the only peaceful damsel, possibly also the talbots, but they also eat flatworms which is a big plus if you ever get them. They're cheap and have great color.

Porcelain crabs are great if you have BTA's. I would skip sexy shrimp in this size tank. Unless you have 20, you'll never see them. Fire shrimp would be a good one. Could do a fighting conch. Could do a watchman pistol shrimp pair as well.

Could do valentini or toby puffer, golden dwarf moray eel, cardinals.

[subsea]

Sea Apple is as cool as it gets. It is a suspension feeding cucumber with a degree in colorful. My tennent has one in his 25G tank. He over feeds with flake food and gets his jollies off when the Sea Apple captures the flakes and stuffs them into the mouth.

Patrick

[Neon Reefer]

I am a fan of the Wrasse and there are so many choices. I love the Pygmy Possum wrasse and the Carpenter's Flasher as well as the Red Headed Fairy. All are good chlices for a 33 long and are easily available at most LFS for a reasonable price. I would not go any bigger with the wrasses though.

[victoly]

You're gonna wanna go ahead and get yourself a yasha goby.

[mFrame]

Tailspot blenny is one of my favorite nano fishes, they have awesome personalities and aren't shy. Porcelain crabs are nice, but you might also want to look into the squat lobsters. Aquadome gets them in occasionally and they're very cool. If you have a good variety of nems (rock, mini carpet, etc) you'll find that a lot of the shrimp will host them (look at several of George Monnat's posts about them).

I haven't had any luck with the smaller clown gobies (citron, green, etc). so you might want to avoid them. They tend to last until they starve unless you happen on one that eats frozen or pellet foods.

[Wade]

I love my six line wrasse. Good to have around for critter control and a beautiful fish to boot!

[+etannert]

I don't think a 33 qualifies as a nano... I love firefish for color and always being out (once they get used to your tank). A mature McCosker's wrasse is a beautiful thing. Pygmy wrasses are very cool. I do love the Randall's goby, in fact, the stocking you list above is pretty similar to what I had in my Solana when it was running...

I would be careful of grammas, they tend to be bullies.

If the tank is narrow enough you could do some neon gobies. Very colorful and small enough not to have much impact on bioload, however, easily lost in a bigger tank.

[Jmvanness]

Sorry for the delay getting back to you all. My mother-in-law was attacked by a dog on Wednesday and her face was severely injured, so I've been helping out a lot with that and spending very little time on here.

Be really careful with the angel. Most will take to nipping coral at some point. Flameback is probably the safest bet but none are guaranteed.

My go to fish for small tanks are royal grammas, springer's damsel, and assessor basslets. All will get along with each other. The springer's is pretty much the only peaceful damsel, possibly also the talbots, but they also eat flatworms which is a big plus if you ever get them. They're cheap and have great color.

Porcelain crabs are great if you have BTA's. I would skip sexy shrimp in this size tank. Unless you have 20, you'll never see them. Fire shrimp would be a good one. Could do a fighting conch. Could do a watchman pistol shrimp pair as well.

Could do valentini or toby puffer, golden dwarf moray eel, cardinals.

I've have really good luck with pygmy and flame angels, and really like the look of both. I also like springeriis so great suggestion there.

I'm considering doing a trio of grammas instead of the firefish after seeing Robb's tank. Never even thought about them before you mentioned it.

Not going to do any nems for the safety of the zoas.

Sea Apple is as cool as it gets. It is a suspension feeding cucumber with a degree in colorful. My tennent has one in his 25G tank. He over feeds with flake food and gets his jollies off when the Sea Apple captures the flakes and stuffs them into the mouth.
Patrick

Sea apples ARE really cool, but I'm terrified of all cucumbers because of the whole "I die, you're all going with me" thing they do.

I am a fan of the Wrasse and there are so many choices. I love the Pygmy Possum wrasse and the Carpenter's Flasher as well as the Red Headed Fairy. All are good chlices for a 33 long and are easily available at most LFS for a reasonable price. I would not go any bigger with the wrasses though.

I absolutely adore the possums, but do worry that some of the other fish might bully them so I'm leaning towards the flasher or a six line.

You're gonna wanna go ahead and get yourself a yasha goby.

You ARE a genius... so I'll definitely look into that.

Tailspot blenny is one of my favorite nano fishes, they have awesome personalities and aren't shy. Porcelain crabs are nice, but you might also want to look into the squat lobsters. Aquadome gets them in occasionally and they're very cool. If you have a good variety of nems (rock, mini carpet, etc) you'll find that a lot of the shrimp will host them (look at several of George Monnat's posts about them).

I haven't had any luck with the smaller clown gobies (citron, green, etc). so you might want to avoid them. They tend to last until they starve unless you happen on one that eats frozen or pellet foods.

I used to have a tailspot that was by far my favorite fish in the tank. I'm pretty sure I'll get one for this tank. I'll have to research the squat lobsters. I thought they got rather large. Any issues with eating small fish or zoas?

I love my six line wrasse. Good to have around for critter control and a beautiful fish to boot!

+1 I just hear they get really mean.

I don't think a 33 qualifies as a nano... I love firefish for color and always being out (once they get used to your tank). A mature McCosker's wrasse is a beautiful thing. Pygmy wrasses are very cool. I do love the Randall's goby, in fact, the stocking you list above is pretty similar to what I had in my Solana when it was running...

I would be careful of grammas, they tend to be bullies.

If the tank is narrow enough you could do some neon gobies. Very colorful and small enough not to have much impact on bioload, however, easily lost in a bigger tank.

Haha... We need a unified definition. I think anything under 40 gallons is nano, under 10 is pico, but hey it's all fun.

I'm definitely leaning towards a flasher for the wrasse. Have you had a Randalls? Do they get picked on a lot?

[jestep]

The yasha's also pair with pistol shrimp which really helps them since they're a very shy species. They are very small though, like 1 - 2" including the tail.

[subsea]

IMO, much information that is circulated on hobby forums is not validated and it is repeated often enough to be considered factual. At one time, I purchased 20 Sea Apples. One large one died in a 75G tank due to neglect on my part. I removed it some days after the fact. True, its smell was putrid, but there were no adverse effects in the tank.

I also find too much information on Tangs to be erroneous on Fosters & Smith. Only keep one of this species per tank. It is not like that on the reef. Ask Timfish if he only puts one Tang of each species in a tank that he is setting up. I think there are more exceptions than rules.

Enjoy your tank.

Patrick

[Jmvanness]

I get what you are saying. I have a friend that breaks the "rules" all the time too, but I tend to be less fortunate than he. This same friend also had a medusa go through a powerhead and kill a good portion of his fish overnight. I'm mostly being extra cautious due to the price of some of the zoas going into this tank and don't want to risk their health.

As for your tang remark... what I read was "Blue regal in my 33!" lol.. jk. No need to call the tang police.

Thank you for your wisdom, Patrick. It's always valued chez moi.

Anyone have any thoughts on splendid dottybacks?

[jestep]

Add the dottyback last if at all. It will more or less own this size tank. If you compare the gramma to a dottyback, the gramma is about a 2/10 and the dottyback is more like an 8/10 on the territory / aggression scale.

[Nwehrman]

I have always wanted a possum wrasse for my tank ... Love them

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[Robb in Austin]

You saw my 20g long recently; 2 pajama cardinals, 1 firefish, 1 tailspot, 1 high finned red banded goby (who has not paired with his Randalli shrimp as of this post)...

Stick to known hardy fish and I think you'll be ok. Add the lowest aggressiveness fish first and go from there.

Tailspots are awesome, as are lanwmowers and starry blennies; although all 3 is a bad idea. Even 2 of 3 is a bad idea.

Overall in a nano (anything less than 50g IMHO) and overstocking becomes a real problem. Sure, you can stick 1" of fish per gallon of water, or whatever metric you want to use, but it's asking for trouble in the end.