krazykat
Member
Hello everybody! Just joined the community today and I wanted to see if anybody can help me. I am re-doing my 29 gallon saltwater tank. My hawkfish is currently in his(?) temporary 10 gallon tank. He is about 4 inches and for two years now he has been the only fish in the 29 gallon tank. I put in a DSB approximately 5 inches deep. There is no live rock in there at the moment. I have a Fluval 104(?) and a 400 watt Marineland powerhead in there at the moment. I have used the Aquaclear foam media as a prefilter on both filters' uptakes. I also have an 18-watt flourescent lamp for lighting, since I will be doing FOWLR, and not very much live rock at that. I am planning on having only a 'bommie" type structure for him, with several live rock frags scattered about. I would like to add some fish to the tank before I return Mellow Yellow (that's my pet hawkfish's name) to the 29 g, so he doesn't make a meal out of them. I would like to add some sand sifting fish, like maybe some gobies and maybe a couple of clownfish - maybe some perculas or some saddlebacks, since I can have more than one of these damselfish in the same tank. Any suggestions as to what fish can go in with my Mellow Yellow? I don't know what kind of Hawkfish he is. I looked at several books but I cannot find him anywhere. He has the body and markings of a Pixie Hawkfish but maybe bigger - and his coloring is similar to that of a Lyretail Hawkfish,kind of a blotchy yellow orange. I have no photos of him at the moment but I can take one and upload it later. Will someone please help?! I would like to have a few more fish in the tank. Thanks in advance!
The second store only had one maroon clown for sale (the other two which were both goldstripe maroons, were in the display tank and were NFS). Looked good and it seemed pretty big at the store. So the LFS guy bagged her up for me and I took her home. It took me a little over two hours to acclimate her to my tank - I floated the bag for 30 minutes with the lights out, then used airline tubing to drip water into a small bucket where I released the maroon. After the drip acclimation, I released her into the 29 gallon, and she started to explore the territory. She actually ate some of the flake food that I dropped into the tank to distract my hawkfish. Very promising! But then my hawkfish jetted out of his (?) hiding spot and pecked at her! And so she swam to the top right back corner to hide behind the powerhead! And there she stayed! The maroon is half the size of the hawkfish!!!! Aaaaaghhhhhh!!!!! Mellow Yellow actually took a few more swings at my maroon. And then Mellow Yellow seemed to stop and go into hiding. But then he occasionally comes around, eyes swiveling towards the corner where the maroon is hiding, and doing swim-bys.....Right now my maroon is in one of those breeding nets to keep her away from the hawkfish. I need to go to work early tomorrow and I'm planning on keeping her in the breeding net to keep her safe. I turned off all the powerheads and only the Fluval 104 is now creating any circulation in the tank. Pretty worried, though. I just hope she makes it through the night okay. It's pretty stressful on me thinking about what's going on in there, and I know it's even more stressful on her. 
----- I will get a 55 gallon tank, black, for these two fish. Also went to the nearby Petco and they have this 3/4" maroon. Thinking of getting that to see if it would form a pair with my current one. Probably need to get it before this smaller maroon decides to turn into another female, being all by itself right now. Hmmm.... When does this sex change happen, anyway? New maroon is tank bred, according to the sign at the store.