2 ocellaris clownfish
2 saddle clownfish
1 blue yellow belly tang
1 condes fairy wrasse
1 tricolor fairy wrasse
1 bluestripe neon goby
1 firefish goby
4 bartlet anthias
1 nano reef trimma goby
1 black cap basslet
2 cleaner shrimp
possibly one Mandarin goby
all i would like to know is if these fish are compatible in a reef tank of 50 gallons.
they wont attack each other right?
and can i add more?
and should i get 75 gallon instead?
and last but not least, any suggestions for corals and anemones?
Keep an eye on your fish. The biggest problem I think you may have is feeding them well. I’ve found that feeding is a very important thing in fish keeping. I’ve seen several tanks with "incompatible fish" having no problems. You may have problems with the Anthia, the most stable anthia populations I’ve seen consist of roughly 10 females to 1 male. They also like to jump, they are a bit skid-dish. The basslet may get picked on I’ve noticed firefish and dottybacks tend to pick on them. Fairy wrasse can get territorial with other fairy wrasse. All the small rock sitting gobies can have trouble competing for food around free swimming fish. The clowns should be ok but if they pair up and mate which they do very easily they could get agressive I would think the saddle clowns would be the more agressive if that happens. The mandarin gobi really should be kept in a well established tank for it will spend most of it’s time looking for live natural food which you tend to find in mature tanks that are well balanced. Now that I’ve just bashed most of your list…. it is possible to do that list. Feeding will be key.
I’m going to paste my feeding guide from my other answers:
Feed your fish the right way. This is probably the number one mistake made in fish keeping. Feed small amounts of food at a time (I like to use pellets, but most new fish don’t recognize them as food right away so flakes or frozen may have to be used). Make sure they eat all of it before you give another pinch (I feed REALLY SMALL pinches 3-4 pellets at a time or 4-5 LARGE flakes at a time. Once fish figgure out there is food in the tank they should start looking for it to hit the water. Then you can make the pinches a LITTLE bigger, but they should ALWAYS eat all the food from the last pinch before you feed any more to them. The idea is to feed the fish, not the water or the filter. They should eat in a pecking order, with the dominate fish eating first. I like to leave them a bit hungry that way they go looking for any leftovers. Just make sure the last fish in the pecking order gets some food. It takes some practice but you will be rewarded with very healthy fish and very few, if any problems with your tank. As far as how often to feed them, Keep an eye on their tails. If you see them chasing each other or if their tail starts to become torn then add a feeding, otherwise once a day is fine. You shouldn’t be able to see the fishes bones and they shouldn’t have a "pinched" belly, each tank is different and yes fish can get fat.
To that general guide I’d like to add some reef feeding cautions:
Clean up crews are important in a reef. Blue leg hermits work about the best use one per gallon as a baseline. I also use asteria snails since they help to keep the algae under control again one per gallon as a baseline (I found they tend to live longer than other types of snails just keep the specific gravity of the water above 1.021 and the water temp below 79 deg.). Feeding corals food will make them grow like crazy but if you have aiptasia they can out grow your corals and overtake the tank easily aiptasia are a real problem now days and are experts at eating left over fish food (hence feeding small amounts and making sure the fish eat the food). You might also consider adding a 2-3 serpent or brittle starfish and maybe a few sea cucumbers or about 2 sand sifting starfish if you have a sandy bottom.
As far as corals and anemones that depends more on your lighting and water movement. Leathers and mushrooms are easy to find a home for most of the time. Stay away from red, orange,yellow or purple leathers, the ones that come that way from nature are filter feeders and are hard to feed and the others are dyed. If you want anemones for your clowns then get them but be aware they will most likely move around and sting anything they come in contact with including corals. Some clowns will go into corals if no anemones are available. Of those corals bubble coral seems to attract them the most, or any of the tree shaped leathers.
As far as total number of fish… if you feed them like I pointed out above you can get very high densities of fish in a tank. Most professionals recommend 10 gallons of water for every 3-4 inches of fish. However, feeding is really key to this, fish will tolerate a lot if they have the right amount of food consitantly.
Tank size is up to you, but you will allways want a bigger tank. It is more important to spend your money on making the tank as stable and constant as possible. Also if you want corals then you should build your tank around their needs. Allways plan your tank around what you want to keep in it not how big you want it.
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If you have any doubt, get the 75 gallon, I say. That way you will be able to start with all the fish you listed and keep adding when you get the whim. I always go bigger, I mean think about it, how much harder is it going to be to deal with a 75, if you were already planning on 50..? Good luck and enjoy!!
Sorry I can’t be of more assistance, I only keep freshwater tanks
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