Fish Stocking Advice

It looks like you've done your research!  The fishes you're looking at are pretty peaceful by nature.  I have kept all of them in my tanks one time or another, just not all together at once.  However, I do believe they will all get along fine.
 
If you decide to get anthias, Lyretails and Bartletts are a good choice.  I've had good luck with them and they're both very hardy.  Mine will eat flake, pellet and frozen foods.  In fact, I think they're pigs!  I only feed mine once a day and by looking at them, you wouldn't be able to tell if I didn't.  I know there are some misconceptions out there like they are hard to keep or you have to feed 2-3X daily.  I'm sure that may be the case with some but not with the ones I've experienced.

 

I am a huge anthias lover myself. I dont know why but chromis seem to dissappear 1 by 1 over time. I am glad you are waity on the mandarin. I didnt realize you couldnt house mandarin's wrasses together though. They are my fav fish. I like the firefish but are very shy so you dont see them very much.

I dont like the lawnmower either other then for algae control

 

Between the Lyretails and Bartlett's, I like the Bartlett's a little bit more. Although you might like the colors on the Lyretails better since they are a little darker in red/orange. Afterall, orange is your favorite color! And please don't tell me that's why you like the Broncos! /site/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif

 

Chromis aren't that great. I have 3. They don't school like I thought they would when I bougt them. I'd rather get the anthias. I assume you'd get 3 females? From what I've read you can only  have one male, and if you don't have enough females to disperse his the males attention, then the male will stress out the females. If you eventually want the clownfish to host in an anenome, I wouldn't buy ocellaris or perculas. I think having the clowns host in a BTA makes them much more interesting.
If you bought clarkii, maroon or I think, tomato clowns, they would host in a bubble tip anenome.
Lawnmowers aren't colorful but they add personality to the tank. I had a mated pair of target mandarins. They were really nice, at night they would do a spiraling dance together after the lights went out. Then I lost one when I was a vacation and the other one I lost a few months ago. I had them both for over a year. The only thing I can think of is I removed a bit of rock from the tank and maybe that depleted their food source. I would make sure you have a LOT of rock in your tank if you get a mandarin.

 

What's a thread without pictures? /site/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/_default/emoticons/smile.gif
Here's the Bartlett's in my new tank.  The colors are much more vibrant now than when I first got them.


Here's the Lyretails in my old tank.

 

 

The only thing I would like to add is that I have both a six line and a mandarin in my 90 gallon.  My six line eats regular food and probably does eat pods but I only see him being a pig at feeding time like the others.  I love my mandarin, they are such awesomely colored fish that it's almost unreal to study the coloration.  I have the red and blue type, btw.  My mandarin is so mellow it's not funny.  It's almost like he's oblivious to any aggression from other fish so they learned to just ignore him long ago, and he really couldn't care less about any of them either.  My tankmates are all pretty mellow and I'm glad.  It's really hard to see bullying in a box of water.

 

I sort of scanned through it. Maybe Sone or some of the other anthia keepers can verify this, but I think they recommend to have around 5 or 6 females for the male so that the aggression from the male is spread out more amongst them and reduces the stress for each female.
Posted By Philby on 11/15/2007 12:31 PM
Sone - thanks for the pics! and I do like the coloring of the Bartlett's a little more. As far as my favorite color being orange - I've always been a fan of brighter colors - and I'm from TN so I'm a huge UT fan - and you can't get much more orange than that. I am a Broncos fan, but that's because I lived in CO (Boulder) for a year, and it's hard not to be a fan of their teams when you live there - Denver is a great sports town! The fact that they also have orange as one of their colors is just a bonus. But my GF does like teams just because they're orange, or maybe because they have a tiger nicname, or maybe both!?! (she likes the bengals and cheers for Auburn if they're on and not playing UT) I don't mind because she watches sports as much or more than most guys I know - so she can cheer for whoever she wants as long as I get to watch sports whenever it's on!!

tibbs - did you read my post?? J/K - yes I know the anthias need 1 male and many females to spread the aggression - so I'll get 1 male and 2-4 females. And I'm not planning on have a nem in this tank (don't want it to destroy SPS!) so I'm not worried about these clowns hosting. I will eventually have a tank that's specifically for clowns/anem and if I go BTA i'll probably get tomato clowns, but I'd really like a pair of orange or pink skunk clowns and a heteractis magnifica - unfortunately the H magnifica (ritteri) are much harder to keep than BTAs...so we'll see how my reefing skills are before I decide which nem to keep. And yes I will make sure I have sufficient PODS for a mandarin before I get one, if I don't I won't get one. Cool that you had a pair that were "mating" (the spiral dance you described) sorry you lost them...

 

I think Phil, that after your tank is mature and you visably see a nice pod population you could probably be thinking about a Mandarin.  I waited at least 6 months and have worried since that my mandy had enough to eat but I think I'm ok.  I really like my six line, but if I had to pick, I'd certainly go for the Mandarin.  They are really cool fish.

 

Posted By tibbs2 on 11/15/2007 1:22 PM
I sort of scanned through it. Maybe Sone or some of the other anthia keepers can verify this, but I think they recommend to have around 5 or 6 females for the male so that the aggression from the male is spread out more amongst them and reduces the stress for each female.
I don't think there's a magic ratio to achieve.  The combination of fish along with the size of the tank and the amount of live rock/hiding spaces can all become factors.  If these are non-factors, the ratio of male to females could be closer, IMO.

 

I have 4 in my tank now. They all get along well with their tankmates. From time to time, they can get snappy with each other but there's no visible damage to any of them. They must be all talk and no action. /site/DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/_default/emoticons/biggrin.gif

 

I wish I could remember the girls name I got my RBTA from her , she does tank maintance and is om here now and then,
I picked up some ricordia from her and she had a mandarin it ate flake food, I expressed my surprise over that and I was told that some do and will, and she said she would never buy one that did not eat flake food.
I wish she was on here more, and could comment on it.

 

I've heard that some do too but mine never has.  A few weeks back I saw mine eat a mysis and I was sooo excited.  And the next thing I knew, he spit it out. 
Melev's reef has a neat Mandarin feeding station that's worth checking out.

 

Looks fairly good. If you don't like the looks of the lawnmower blenny try a red-lipped blenny or one of the others with that same body style. Red-lippeds, at least in my experience (I've only had 1) have all the personality but look a bit nicer.

I have doubts about keeping a mandarin healthy in your tank. They're slow, methodical eaters, and wrasses aren't the only other fish that compete for their food. Even if you found one that ate prepared foods (Rachael had two that ate mysis and spawned regularly) I think your tank will have too much flow for a mandarin to be able to utilize it. Having seen them eat frozen foods, I can tell you that the food has to be fairly still and right in front of them. They don't bolt after bits of food like other fish will.

Now I'm not saying you won't be able to keep one, I'm just saying that it would be good to be aware that if the fat mandarin you pick up gradually becomes skinny, and they almost always fade over fairly lengthy periods of time, that it may need a bigger home.