Ron1319

My wife and I are putting together a wish list for our new 100 gallon TruVu aquarium. We have put together the following list of possibly compatible species from looking at compatibility charts and going to practically every aquarium shop in the greater Sacramento area:

1) Lionfish (couple possibilities)
2) Eel (Snowflake)
3) Puffer (couple possibilities - porcupine?)
4) Angler

Every shop here seems to have these innocent looking green boxfish, but everything we read says that they grow up to be 2' around and require 150 gallon tanks. They were going to be in spot #4.

We have a lot of lights but no corals yet. We just got one Bak Pak skimmer on Craigslist for $60 and can add a second if needed. We have a cannister filter (Magnum 350) underneath and an Emperor 400 filter. The cannister filter and Emperor 400 came with the aquarium and have been running since we set everything up last weekend.

The live rock and sand in the aquarium were wet in bins for about 12 hours between being disassembled from the guy we bought the setup from and being set back up in our living room.

Enough background -- we're trying to figure out with larger fish when the tank would become overpopulated and how to account whether we could get everything on our wishlist or if we would need to limit ourselves to a dwarf lionfish (for instance) to help make sure that a year from now everything didn't grow out of the aquarium. There's no reason we couldn't go to a larger tank at some point in the future, but it'd be nice if those things would fit in this set up.

Anything in the way of inches of fish per gallon seems to be vague and always with a "maybe" attached.

Advice?

Ron and Deanna

agsansoo

Hello Ron & Deanna,
Great choice of tank manufacture ! Here a compatibility chart.
http://www.marinedepotlive.com/mdl_compatibility.html

As for inches per gallon, that depends on your setup. The better your skimmer ... The more bio-load it can handle.

agsansoo

Oh by the way !

Ron1319

I have some more info and clarification questions. The min aquarium sizes from Marine Depot Live:

1) Lionfish - Antennata - 30 gallons, Volitan - 60 gallons (for 15" fish)
2) Snowflake Eel - 30 gallons
3) Porcupine Puffer - 80 gallons
4) Angler - 20 gallons

That would seem to indicate that even at maximum size the large fish would be fine in our 100 gallon tank. I'm assuming you don't need to add those numbers together. I'd hate to kill a fish because I trusted a number that is inaccurate or doesn't apply the way I think it does.

The other question (in response to above link to a compatibility chart) - What do you do when fish compatibility charts disagree? Anglers are a "maybe" at this link:

http://www.ratemyfishtank.com/saltwa...ility_tool.php

(with everything else)

at this link:

http://www.marinedepotlive.com/mdl_compatibility.html

Everything is a yes but the eel and the angler.

at this link:

http://www.liveaquaria.com/general/c...lity_chart.cfm

Anglers and eels are a maybe, but I see the same chart on a different site and it says no instead like somebody copied it wrong.

The Angler is last on the list anyway, so we can continue to research that for (likely) months.

I was also hoping for advice on whether the order seems right. For the sake of bio-load we should let each one settle in and make sure the nitrogen cycle doesn't get shocked? From a territory standpoint there is advice out there to populate more than one at a time. I figure lion fish first, but I wonder if eel then puffer or puffer then eel might be better. The internet seems to often say 2 weeks between fish, but it doesn't seem necessary to rush that. If someone suggests that the aquarium should be able to handle it if carefully watched, I'd be down with adding the lionfish and the puffer (for instance) and then the eel later and the angler months after if someone said that would work best.

Thanks,
Ron

Coryd55

Wow, you have incredible patience. Those are all fairly aggressive fish as far as I know. I would add them in order of least aggressive to most. Thats what one would do in FW anyway. For example if you had a school of small non aggressive freshwater fish in a tank and let them establish there territory for a few weeks and then added a more aggresive fish like an angelfish. The angelfish would feel more like a guest and the smaller fish would have a already established territory and the angels would have to take what is left. If you did it with the more aggressive fish first then the angel would treat the new fish more aggressively because it would already feel like the boss.

Hope you understand my reasoning. I would wait for someone more experienced in SW tanks to come help you like agsansoo but I noticed no one had posted in a while and the SW section doesnt have as many active members so I thought I might post just to give you reassurance that someone was still looking at your post.

Cory

agsansoo

Thanks Cory !
I've seen a 15" + Volitan Lionfish at a LFS. Plus their spines, it was huge. Not much room for too many other fish in a 100 gallon. The ocean is big, and so are the fish that swim in it ! That why you need to research and pick your fish wisely. Good luck.