thanks Mike
Ive been doing alot of thinking lately about what the stock list for V3 of my reef might look like as far as fish goes.....V2 has way too many fish for it own good.....most are in the "must keep" category, a few are in the "must be re-homed" category and a couple ( with one fish in particular) Im really struggling with what to do with..... heres how my current list shakes down....
5 green chromis:.....must keeps....these guys started as a group of 14 and whittled their way down to 5 rather quickly....the five survivors have been five for a few monthes now.....they still on occasion swim as a group(in between brief spats), which I think is cool..... I may try and enlarge the group in V3 and see what happens
4" "Winky" the one eyed banded shrimp goby: ....must keep.....Winky spent over a year at the old shop because nobody wanted to buy a one eyed goby....I took pity on him and brought him home....he's been with me ever since.....he has a little trouble tracking and catching food, but despite this, has turned form a shy reclusive fish to a bold, cantankerous old bugger....
3 1/2" royal gramma.....must keep......just cuz he's pretty....and mellow....
2" yellow assessor......must keep.....same as above
3" flame hawkfish.....must keep.....cuz he's too cool for school
3" leopard wrasse..... must keep.....one of those harder to keep fish thats doing incredibly well
3 1/2" melenarus wrasse.....must keep .....too pretty and too beneficial not to keep
4" powder blue tang.......MUST keep......another harder to keep fish....that is finally doing well for
me.......not a blemish on him and super playful.....my hands down favorite fish in the tank.....
3" Lubbocks wrasse......must keep.....just cuz
2 1/2" sunrise dottyback..... must re-home.....he's got quite the attitude.....most of my fish can handle him......one cant.....my yellow assessor.....the only fish in the tank thats smaller than the dotty.....I like my assessor too much so the dotty has to go....
3" coral beauty.....must re-home.....bought this guy as a "deep water" coral beauty....colors changed to a regular beauty....I would much rather have a potters, so ..... he's on the nix list
2 1/2" african flameback angel ..... must re-home.....stunning looking fish but he picks at EVERYTHING.....so he 's gotta go....
now on to the tough decisions........
4" yellow tang......my plan was to re-home this guy and introduce a trio of small yellows.... the shop got in some small Hawaiians and I took three up to E-town at X-mas and put them in Laurie's 80g....the thought was to wait til the tank had settled down a bit and add the trio that had been co-habitating for a couple monthes all at once......one yellow didnt do the three hour drive well and ended up dying the next day....we went to RCE that day and Steve had a few of the same Hawaiian yellows in so I thought I would grab another one, before the other two had a chance to settle in....so there were three again......another one ended up dying a couple days later and I decide not to spend any more money on tangs, so that left two......which didnt work out so well....the dominant one picked on the sub for a couple weeks and the weaker one then died from stress........so now I have a small yellow in E-towm and a big yellow here in Ctown......not sure what Im gonna do about the situation now
now heres the one Im REALLY struggling with.....Chevy......my 5 1/2" chevron tang......I love him to death but the reality is, even a 260g tank will be to small for a fish that has the potential to reach 15" .....my head says, re-home him while you have the chance.....my heart doesnt wanna let him go.....he probably wont reach a size to where he will be an issue for a couple years, but then Im faced with the more difficult task of trying to re-home a 8-10"(just guessing here) fish instead of a 5" fish..... I told Laurie this morning that I was considering re-homing him and she dang near killed me....Im torn......
looking for insight and opinions......what would you do?