46 bow front quest

[ZAPCOnj]

I believe i will be ending my 29 biocube journey this weekend and starting up my 46 bow front reef.

I have 30lbs of cured lr in my cube and another 40lbs of lr curing for 2+ weeks in tubs at the house. I will most likely not use all of it in the display tank but will put a bunch in the sump area. and the rest will.. i dunno.. i'll find something to do with it. I also have 20lbs of LS in the cube and another 30lbs of LS also in the tubs at the house.

my new light is being fabricated as i type (thanks to Jim at Catalina Aquariums and Steve at Coral Dynamics) and my CPR overflow/sump/skimmer/refuge kit is on the way as well as my phosban reactor and a few other goodies.... i'm kind of anxious to start but with my p coming schedule I'm hoping to have enough time this weekend to get everything set up and running. I'll let the tank mature some more (most likely until Turkey day) while i'm at tradeshows every other week.

I'm not too worried about the corals. I have a good idea on what i want in there as well as the clams i want in there.

so my question to the boards is this....

in the 46 bow front tank. what fish would you guys recommend in there? I'm partial to anything Colorful and interesting to look at.

when making recommendations please keep in mind that i will start construction on my new house in June of next year and i have the architect designing in a few 200gal tanks in my basement so i will have room to grow by next december or feb of 2010.

[woolfe]

Personally I would definately get a pistol shrimp/Goby pair. They are so cool to watch!

[SubRosa]

My 46 has been up and running(in my house at least) for almost 4 months and I'm still asking that same question! I guess at some point I have to put fish in to make my wife happy but I'm delaying it as long as possible! I know that a pair of Spotted Mandarins are inevitable, but beyond that I haven't gotten.

John

[ZAPCOnj]

my lfs has a "matched" pair of exquisite wrasses that i thought would be nice in the tank... I had considered a tiny hippo tank say about an inch in size... by the time he grows to the size where he needs more space the house should be built or the LFS said they would hold him for me if i needed them to.

i dunno.. just trying to get ideas right now...

[Andrew52984]

I was dumb enough to put a baby blue hippo in my tank back at the end of August its now the middle of October and that baby hippo is now almost a three inch fish from nose to the end of the tail! Dumbest thing I ever did, I didn't research tangs, and trusted the LFS but found them to just want my money. Now i'm upgrading to a 125 if not larger asap! That blue hippo was the third fish added to my tank and now is like part of my family so now I gotta spend the money on a larger tank cause I don't wanna get rid of it. Good excuse for an upgrade, but bad for the fish to be in there....

[ZAPCOnj]

Originally Posted by Andrew52984

I was dumb enough to put a baby blue hippo in my tank back at the end of August its now the middle of October and that baby hippo is now almost a three inch fish from nose to the end of the tail! Dumbest thing I ever did, I didn't research tangs, and trusted the LFS but found them to just want my money. Now i'm upgrading to a 125 if not larger asap! That blue hippo was the third fish added to my tank and now is like part of my family so now I gotta spend the money on a larger tank cause I don't wanna get rid of it. Good excuse for an upgrade, but bad for the fish to be in there....

out of curiosity how big is your current tank? and roughly what size was he when you got him?

[Andrew52984]

Same tank as you 46g bowfront. and he was right at one inch when i got him. measured him when he was in the bag before I began acclimating him.

[ZAPCOnj]

cool... do you have a fts of your set up? i'm interested to see how it looks.

[Andrew52984]

Here it is about a month ago. The white fossilized coral has been removed, the MJ1200 you see for my skimmer is now in a preskimmer box for the aquac remora skimmer. I have another koralia 2 on the opposite side of the other, and a MJ1200 on the back to create flow to blow across the front and across the top of the sandbed. The crushed coral you see was removed and replaced with a 3 to 3.5 inch deep sugarsized caribasea aragonite bed, the fish love it!



Trying to remember if there've been any more changes since this picture was taken. Oh yeah, I also have replaced the PC fixture that was on the tank with a TekLight 4x39w T5 fixture, which is awesome!
I need to post a newer FTS

[Andrew52984]

That picture is under the T5's, and it was just after a major water change so the water looks cloudy due to that and the skimmer still wasn't broken in so there was a darn snow storm of microbubbles...

[ZAPCOnj]

anyone else have any suggestions?

[new reefer 03]

get a pair of Clowns =) the typical reef tank, also a YELLOW tang. im putting one in my 55 when i get more LR to make holes for him to roam around through

[chrome91]

Originally Posted by new reefer 03

get a pair of Clowns =) the typical reef tank, also a YELLOW tang. im putting one in my 55 when i get more LR to make holes for him to roam around through

yellow tangs are 90g+ fish

[Andrew52984]

I agree completely, I wouldn't put any type of tang in anything less than a 90. And I would only do that if its a 90 gallon long. These fish need the horizontal swimming area. I'm getting my 125 soon for my blue hippo and I highly doubt i will add any more tangs for this tank unless I get an even bigger tank.

[chrome91]

yeah, tangs need their space. smaller ones like koles need a 75g. Blue hippos need 150g+