NEReef

that is a lot of fish! then again it is 350 gallons just be sure not to add them all at once. If you are planning on growing any sps I would recommend skipping the angels all together. Look into your chromis selection as for the most part besides the blue/green the rest of them change to a duller color as they get older. pajama cardinal are pretty good schooling fish. as for the Tangs I would suggest looking at the max sizes of them and known temperament/health reputation. I would recommend if you are going to do all the clowns for sure to add them all at the same time and make sure they are all about the same size....there is a chance that they won't pair with the "like" clown so keep that in mind. If your not able to get a mandarin that has been trained on prepared foods already then I would wait until you get a good pod population to sustain one and until u can get it to eat something prepared I would stick with just the one. Don't be surprised or get disappointed if you get 3 kaudern's cardinal and only 1 survives they are known to have a pretty high mortality rate lately.

Hmm good call on the chromis maybe I will just do one big school of blue/green. As far as sps go I'm thinking maybe some so the flame is in question I'm not dead set on it but i think they bring alot of color. The Lamarck is supposed to ignore sps from what I have read about it. The tangs will be added last all at once to try to minimize aggression/ territorial disputes. I hope to buy the clowns as pairs say from ORA is it your experience that bought pairs may disassociate in the presence of other pairs? I plan on using the space in the tank to establish an anemone for each pair hopefully on opposite ends to keep the pairs as separated as possible again to keep territorial disputes down. I'm thinking trying to keep their favorite anemone for each pair although they do share some overlap in choosing hosts. Mandarins will definitely be added once the tank has matured some. The current plan is to buy pods online to jump start the system and let them become established before adding mandarins. I am also contemplating building a feeding station like the one Paul has pics and videos of for his mandarin I like the idea of having a place that I can know if i look there I will stand a good changeover actually seeing them instead of scouring a big tank for a glimpse. I had a question about the kauderns are they the same as banggai cardinals basically? I wrote those down but if they are different fish I will be happy with whichever is easier. The wife hates pajamas they are symmetrical with and obvious color scheme I have to fight to get mandarins cuz she doesnt like all the different colors.

kaudern's and bangai are the same fish just different nicknames. If the clowns are paired when purchased they will most likely remain that way but if you were to buy 6 juvenile clowns the chances are good they pair up with different morphs (i would actually like to have them paired up like that personally.) If you are wanting to do anemones I would wait on the clowns and any coral until after you have the anemone settled happy and healthy otherwise your clowns might do what mine did (and still do) make love to something other than an anemone (in my case Xenia and zoanthids.) if you do add the clowns in at the same time though seeing as how they have no claimed territory they shouldn't have any territory issues. most people will recommend that you only add anemone to a well established tank which would mean in a perfect scenario you add anemones after about 8 months of having live fish in the tank successfully then after a couple months if the anemones are doing well and are big enough to host clowns you add the clowns and once the anemones have stopped relocating for a few weeks straight you can add coral. not saying that it as to happen that way but livestock is expensive and make sure you run quarantine tanks for all livestock!

on another note the chromis, cardinals, and any other very docile fish that claim no territory would be the first ones I would add to the tank, I added my chromis last in my tank and though they don't seem to actually get hurt lets just say that the chromis don't have time to create a pecking order among-st themselves as the clowns keep them busy.

Is this the list of all the kinds of fish you'd like to have, and want help choosing the best from each category, or did you plan to get pretty much everything on the list unless otherwise indicated?

The blue tang (Hippo/Regal) as well as the Yellow Belly Tang can be aggressive toward some corals, such as zoanthids. My Yellow Bellies also liked to destroy MH bulbs with their splashing and racing around the tank.

Good luck with that many clowns. I hoped to have two different pairs in my 400g, and in the end I had to keep it to two with the others banished to the refugium and the frag tank. I really figured some would be on one side, others on the opposite, but they traveled just to be a pain. I was annoyed, since I wanted both pairs to view from either end of the tank.

You may get lucky with a decent Flame Angel. Mine's been tough on the corals, but the corals that survived seem to be fine with his presence. That being said, I'm thinking all my angels will go in a separate tank when the 400g is set up again.

Hey Melev have you considered keeping the 250 up and making it just an anemone angel tank and moving just about everything else back to the 400g....heck or you could move the anemone back to the 400g as well and keep it a fowler with angels, triggers, eels, puffers, and other fish you have been unable to keep with corals wouldn't cost near as much to maintain as the 400g reef tank since you wouldn't need great lighting or a lot of flow like you do for corals, heck you could probably even do a mantis shrimp in there with bigger fish you might could get away with it. i dunno just a thought didn't know if you had ever been interested in that sort of thing?

I'd rather get this one out of the fishroom that is making it so hard to get into the fishroom. I know I'd get a good deal on it, but it's a beast of a tank.

Marc I like all these fish. (plus about a million more lol) I would like to get as many of them as I can obviously the tangs are just some of the ones that I really like I understand even in a 350G I won't get more then a few. I appreciate the heads up on the Regal as that is probably one of my more favorite ones. Any insight into why you couldnt keep two pairs of clowns in the tank? My buddy keeps 6 in his 210 and im wondering if its because he has a couple of large sebaes and a large long tentacle anemone in the tank. Maybe more homes less stress/fighting? Your tank only had the RBTA's that were in fairly close proximity right? I dont think I am going to try to keep 3 pairs anymore either I am thinking maybe two pairs a pair of ORA naked clowns and a pair of ORA black percs which are really a. ocellaris.... dont really get that they should be false percs then right??? I dont think the flame angel will make it into the tank and maybe not even the lamarck. I am debating even cutting out most of the cardinals in favor of a larger group of bangai/ kauderns... my wife really likes those ones and she never has anything nice to say about fish...

Perhaps adding all the clowns at once will avoid territorial issues, but I had 4 anemones (two different kinds of BTAs) in the tank and the female was vicious to the other pair, and her mate joined her aggressively. Once I pulled her from the tank, the aggression stopped.

I've seen one tank with a huge anemone and 8 or more Skunk Clowns living in harmony in those tentacles. That was awesome to observe.