Stocking A 40 Gallon

[Musho3210]

In the very very near future we plan on getting a 40 gallon breeder, an upgrade from our current 20 gallon.

Here are the planed specs of the new tank:

40 gallon breeder
20 gallon sump with refugium
Octopus 110 recirculating skimmer
1 150 watt metal halide and one or two compact fluorescents/T5 fluorescent to light the edges
Very very shallow sand bed (with the very high possibility of a bare bottom)
around 60 pounds of lr

Currently, these are a must since they are already in the 20 gallon:
2 clownfish
1 Yellow Watchman Goby
2 Cleaner Shrimp
1 Pistol Shimp
Monti cap
Pavona coral
yellow fiji toadstool
xenia, clove polyps, green star polyps (the weeds)
various mushrooms
various zoas
Open brain coral
Bubble coral
torch coral
candy cane

This is the extras that i currently want:
Crocea Clam
More lps (blastos, acans, frogspawn etc)
Lawnmower blenny
2 kaudern cardinals (mated pair)
1 Mantis shrimp (isolated in the refugium part of the sump)


I wanted to get a lionfish, i heard about fu manchu and how they dont grow big (less of a chance of my fish being a meal) but i hear of the near immposity of feeding them prepared foods and i dont have the "heart" to feed it live foods, plus live feeders arent healthy for them.

But i still want one largish display fish, things that come to mind are valenti puffer (but i hear they are not reef safe) a type of dwarf angelfish (i hear they are a risk) a snowflake eel (a risk and tank may be too small). I know its not a display fish but i wouldnt mind a scooter blenny or a mandarin fish. I wouldnt mind a slight challenge. Is the tank big enough for one of those if they take prepared foods?

Suggestions welcome.

 

[ox5477]

well first off, I believe any lion would be a threat to any peaceful reef fish that does not grow huge... the eel would gobble up any goby or blenny most likely.... and the mandarin feeds almost exclusively on pods... so a large colony of pods would need to be established to feed the fish. I don't know if they will eat prepared foods but i do know that many people advise that a mandarin not go in a tank under 75G, making sure that the tank is matured and has a large pod population....

The dwarfangel could be a wonderful addition. Flames in particular are a very popular species, but there is the precaution that they will eat some corals (I don't remember wether it's softies or stoney coral it prefers). I have had a flame angel before and everything was wonderful until it just stopped eating one day. The shop had the flame eating flake and mysis so I continued the mysis as thats what I fed the whole tank. But, I started to notice that when every fish was diving and gulping up the mysis, it would just swim to the back of the rock work and swim back and forth. Then finally, one morning, the flame was stuck to the powerhead inlet and rock hard... I was upset to lose him and was kind of upset cause he was expensive as well....

 

[Musho3210]

well i would only get the mandarin/scooter if it took prepared foods AT the store as well as a heavy pod population in the sump/tank and possibly another container.