260l Marine Tank!

[Duck and Dive]

Hi,

I am setting up a 260L marine tank over christmas. I have always wanted to keep them and finnaly I can! The tank will have T5 lighting one blue and one white tube. I will use live sand and have a lot of live rock in the tank for filtration and a medium size skimmer. I plan on adding a large flow pump to circulate the water. I am going to keep soft corals as well.

I have made a fish list, but i probably won't stick to it but here it is anyway:

1x Scarlet hawkfish
1x Valentini Puffer
2x Purple firefish
1x Manderin
1x Cleaner Wrasse
3x Neon Goby
6x Green Chromis
1x Flame angel
3x Cleaner shrimp
2x Hermit crabs

And a pair of clowns.



Is this Ok? I think it may be too overstocked.

Any tips would be welcome as I am a newbie to keeping them but I know a bit about them.

Thanks,

D&D

 

[ben1987]

Fire fish only do well in mated pairs or singles and cleaner wrasse really want to be in big tanks where there are large fish iirc.
You will need to wait a long time before you put the mandarin in as the tank needs to be really mature or you will have to add live food.

 

[Duck and Dive]

Thanks for the comment, I will see if I can get a mated pair then, are they hard to find?

 

[1234-fishy-freind]

I would suggest to take the puffer off the list as out of your list it poses the most risk to corals and any other inverts like shrimp you might want to keep. It would also be able to do damage to the more delicate fish in your list like the maderin.
A manderin also needs a mature tank of at least a year old to ensure it has enough like pods for it to feed on.

It is also slightly over stocked so the fish I would reccomend to remove are
The puffer
1 of the fire fish
Cleaner wrasse

Depending on how good your filtration is, you would probably be ok with the rest.

 

[ben1987]

agreed re:the puffer aswel.

http/www.liveaquaria.com/product/aquariu...pplies.cfm?c=15

Look on there, best stick to the reef safe fish imo

 

[GShorty1981]

Far to many fish,i have a 180L tank and its crowded with just 4 small fish (Clarkii,YT Blue Damsel,Humbug,Strawberry Dotty) and 1 yellow Tang,my 30kg of Live Rock and deep sand bed pretty much halfs the water amount in my tank.

 

[shibby]

keep the puffer there wicked mine was reef safe, or get the mimic filefish that resembles the valentini there not as bad ....

puffer imo certainly is the same reef safeness as the hawkfish and flame angel. + its full of charecter too just ensure you add the shrimps first just in case...

id probably cancel out the chromis though, so not too overstock, you should be able to fit in the others well enough theres nothing too big glad to see your not opting for tangs though derserve big aquariums imo

 

[karaim]

As mentioned above, I would DEFINATELY remove the puffer (it might eat the corals and inverts and might pick on other docile fish). I would also stick to 1 firefish.

Also, I would not get the 6 chromis. I think in the long run, they will kill each other. 1 Chromis is ok, but they will not do well in large groups in an aquarium setting (at first, they might be ok, but in the long run...not good). Don't take my word for it, read up on it. If you want fish that do well in groups, the cardinals could work.

 

[Duck and Dive]

Ok then no puffer is agreed then. I have been advised by my LFS that the list is ok for this size tank, but I think by the comments you have made has probably put me of the puffer as I could not afford my corals to be damaged due to nipping.

 

[shibby]

noooo il convince you otherwise!!

http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=264


mine didnt eat soft corals if that helps .....


i wouldnt opt for chromis, or cardinals in a group. ditch the chromis and grab a flasher wrasse.

ps if you worried about nipping ditch the flame angel as well. .. .

 

[karaim]

noooo il convince you otherwise!!

[URL="http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=264"]http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=264[/URL]


mine didnt eat soft corals if that helps .....


i wouldnt opt for chromis, or cardinals in a group. ditch the chromis and grab a flasher wrasse.

ps if you worried about nipping ditch the flame angel as well. .. .

Although not guaranteed, angel will tend to leave soft corals alone (it will munch on hard corals though).

 

[karaim]

double post.

 

[shibby]

noooo il convince you otherwise!!

<a href="http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=264" target="_blank">http/www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/pfk/...?article_id=264</a>


mine didnt eat soft corals if that helps .....


i wouldnt opt for chromis, or cardinals in a group. ditch the chromis and grab a flasher wrasse.

ps if you worried about nipping ditch the flame angel as well. .. .

Although not guaranteed, angel will tend to leave soft corals alone (it will munch on hard corals though).

there more then likely to go for xenia or zoanthids, i would of said more so then hard corals, but maybe thats just my experiances with them.

 

[IIITYIII]

Mandarin FTW! Good Choice!

 

[Duck and Dive]

Thanks for the comments. They have been very helpfull. ^I know maderins are so cool they are my fav fish in the world!