First fish
 

I am planning on getting my first fish in the next few weeks for my 45 gallon tall. I have been considering the following fish:

Percula Clown(s) (Amphiprion percula)
Lawnmower Blenny (Salarias fasciatus)
Six Line Wrasse (Pseudocheilinus hexataenia)
Green Chromis (Chromis viridis)

I was planning on adding the clowns first and others in the future, I am in no rush. Are the clowns the best choice as a first fish out of this group or should I choose one of the others. Any other recommendations, additions deletions would be welcomed.

This is just my opinion. Yes i would add the clowns first and if you want more than one add them at the same time. The clowns should be the hardest fish of the list you have.

Clinton

Re: First fish
 

Clowns are great and would be fine in your tank, imo. Same with the six line wrasse. Be careful to cover the entire top of your tank with glass and/or eggcrate because wrasses are known jumpers.

Lawnmower blennies eat filamentous algae. Unless you have a lot of this in your tank, your blenny may starve. I have no experience with this fish, however. Maybe there are alternative foods it will eat. Hopefully, someone will chime in here...

Green chromis are schooling fish. I bought one as a test fish for some bugs we found in one of our tanks, to see if the bugs were parasitic. Turns out the bugs were good bugs, and the chromis is in our 42g hex along with a pair each of ocellaris and skunk clowns, and two gobies. The chromis really wants to school with the ocellaris, but they aren't very interested in the chromis :confused: I'd put more chromis in my 42g, but the tank stocked to capacity imo already.

Instead of the chromis and blenny, I'd probably see what kind of gobies were locally available. I have a yellow clown goby that stays under 1.5" and is cute as a button. Firefish are also quite striking, especially the purple ones.

Thanks for the replies.

I was interested in the Chromis to add some activity to the tank. I have been going back and forth on this choice though, since I have read conflicting reports about them regarding their aggressiveness. I was thinking of getting more than one but some people have found that the larger ones will pick on the others until there is only one left.

I thought the blenny would be a good choice because they are grazers and none of my other choices fit this description. A tang is obviously out of the question so are there other choices for a small tank. I don't have an algae problem now but it seemed like a good fish to keep the balance in the tank.

I had also considered a Royal Gramma but I think they will compete with the Six Line. I do have egg-crate on the top of my tank by the way.

I will also look more into the gobies though.

I have a pair of Chromis, pair of clownfish, and a lawnmower blenny in a 50. They are quite peaceful.

The blenny eats mainly film algae from the glass and rocks, and grazes constantly. He ate filamentous algae only when all the film was gone. If they get too thin, Nori can be used to supplement - people who feed seaweed for their tangs find they have enormous lawnmowers as well.

As it stands, the lawnmower does a fine job keeping itself fed, using its rasping mouth to scrape film algae clean from most surfaces.

The diet of the blenny could be supplemented with nori. However I would certainly look into the firefish gobies, Nemateleotris sp.

If this is your first fish you are introducing to your tank go with the Green Cromis they are cheep so if you have a problem with your tank your not throwing much money away. I have 4 in my tank 2 larger ones and 2 smaller ones both sets introduced at differnt times. Thay all get along with one another as well they do fine with the other fish in the tank. Just my opinion.
Cheers :smile:

Chromis are shoaling fish, not schooling fish. As such, depending on whate else you keep with them, they may, or may not hang together.

:biggrin: