Welcome to Canreef,

And yes we are an AWESOME bunch of banana's :biggrin: or something. :lol:

Chromis are a better species to start with and usually cheaper the clowns and lets face it...I'd rather lose a chromis or two then a clown. Yes once they are in they are a beggar to get out. Having said that If you like the looks of them then go for it.
GO SLOWWW. And I agree with the fact that most angels are munchers of corals. You could try a Bellus, Singapore or maybe a Lamarcks. But I would not have a tank, reef or otherwise without at least one. :redface: My personal opinion only though. I LOVE MY ANGELS.

Leah

I haven't given much thought to the larger species of angels because I thought they would take up too much space and I would have to fore go some of the other fish on the wishlist. What do you guys think, could I substitute the three dwarves for two larger species without affecting the community too much?

Keep the flame angel but replace the coral beauty with a Koran angel. get them as juvinels and make a deal with the LFS that if they start nipping corals that you can bring them back and try another one.
I've heard better results with those two angels and they are truely pretty fish

yes you can for sure the amount of fish your tank can handle depends on space, filtration and age so if you buy a really good skimmer and put lots of rock in your sump and keep your display clean and" open" youll be fine. if you look at larger angels just be sure that they will fit your tank when they are full grown......but remember angels are hit and miss bigtime even with the common ones:):) this includes more than just corals clams are at risk as well:)

your off to a great start and not a doubt in my mind youll do fine.....any more questions and just shoot away:):)

+1 on not adding a lot of fish at once. Someone in the reefaction forum lost all of his fish because he added them all at once and there was a huge ammonia spike. Not good. The bacterias are not in suffisant number to support a sudden and large increase in bioload. Do it very gradualy putting the less aggresive fish first and adding the most aggresive last.

+1 on loose the chromises. They been nothing but pain for me. Mine span every 3 days and it's word war II in a tank the all time.
If I can cutch the bustards and turn time back I would go with 3-4 azure damsels. I know damsels!!! But whose are the nicest one out of damsel family, peaceful and you can get a group of 3-4 and have a pop of blue/yellow here and there.And best of all hardy and will eat fish feces.
Just my two cents.

That said I will be moving to a bigger tank in about a month, so if anyone like my chromises for 2.50 a peace are welcome to have them.

exactly once your tank "cycles" its at the point where your just getting enough bacteria to do its job(always nice to give it a bit of time even when the tests say good)...the bacteria are repopulating in massive numbers but if you add to much they wont be able to keep up and then youll see amonia and nitrite spikes and that equals= dead everything(tank crash)

the same would be said about adding anything to your tank in large numbers lol too much rock added at once is gonna show if you try to compete with the bacteria.... it doesnt take much to keep your fish and corals alive but it doesnt take much to kill them either:):)


haha the best lesson ever "nothing happens fast in a reeftank but disaster"

I wouldn't recommend buying any fish with a good possibility you have to take them out later. This causes a lot of stress on your tank and is a real pain. I did this previously and my fish never trusted me again, running and hiding everytime I came up to the tank rather than coming out for food. Fish traps will sometimes work, but there is no guarantee.

If you want angels that do not nip at corals, look at the group called Genicanthus. Here is a link to some of them:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/fi...s/genicanthus/

You could probably look to get a pair of one of these fish instead of the 3 dwarf's and the bioload would be similar.

Lots of great info thank you everybody. Yeah I keep hearing "Only bad things happen fast". I guess that makes sense when you conisder the bacteria vs bioload. Lots of great info on angels too, thanks. I also want to be careful not to buy a specimen that is too difficult to take care of, being new and all. If I do loose a fish and I'll try my damnest not to, I don't want to loose my shirt as well.

hat being said, how accurate is LiveAquaria.com when they mention the care level of different fish?

LiveAquaria.com is not bad, but what I typically do is type the fish name into the search at reefcentral.com(after becoming a member), and take a look at what people's actual experiences are with keeping the fish long term( 2 years and up). The reason I say long term is some people will say "I have kept 12 chromis together for 6 months and had no problems", but they fail to comment that after about a year, 12 became 10, then 8, and so on. Just be warned though, reefcentral is huge and a search can yield a tonne of results.