Reef safe fish for 40G

[rhofmann]

Any ideas for reef safe fish for my 40G tank? Have a pair of percula clowns, cuc, assorted "easy corals" (favia, candy cane, finger leather, cabbage leather, xenia, star polyps) the clowns spend the whole time in the back corner of the tank, so looking to add maybe 1-2 colorful peaceful small fish.
New to reefing 0 thanks for any help

[chefzilla]

If i was you i would think about a yellow coris wrasse and/or a goby of some sort.

[Richard]

There are a ton!!!

If you want something small that swims around in the open a lot
blue green chromis (or blue reef chromis if you can find them)

If you are willing to risk something being reef safe you can try some dwarf angels like lemon drops, flame angels or flameback. They have been known to pick on corals but it's really hit or miss. Stunning though.

Yellow or lime green coris wrasses are nice but if you have a sand bed that is deeper than 1 inch and you keep corals on the sand bed they are likely to get burried by the wrasses since they love burrowing in the sand and tossing it everywhere.

Six line wrasses I would say would be your best bet since they are colorful, swim around a lot and do not disturb the sand bed. They are also affordable. In the same line but not as affordable are mystery wrasses (one of my favorites). As with all wrasses you'll want to make sure you have a cover for your tank as they are jumpers. Although the sixlines don't tend to jump as much from what I've seen and if you get a calm wrasse that has been in capitivity for a while they are less likely to jump.

Gobies are nice if you want something that will scoot along the bottom. You could get a goby shrimp pair which is always fun to watch. Basically the shrimp and goby go everywhere together but mostly just in front of their den. Yasa hasha goby is a nice pairing goby.

Longnose hawkfish are also quite splendid although they are jumpers too and they can pick on invertabrates (usually shrimp).

Or you could just add a skunk cleaner shrimp or fire shrimp. Shrimps are the best.

Oh and seeing as how you have all those softies you might like a clown goby. They like to host in leathers so it might be fun watching them resting atop on of your leather corals.

Yeah seriously there are too many cool fish to name. One of the reasons I got into this stuff in the first place.

By the way thank you for stopping by our booth at CFM. If you want I can take you to some cool lfs in the area or just help you pick out fish and corals. I also have some corals to give away.

[rhofmann]

Wow - thanks to both of you for the great info - we are going to choose carefully, since we only want to put a very few fish into this tank. Yes - let's go LFS shopping - and I would be up for new corals - we are also slowly adding to the lights so that eventually we will be able to handle more demanding corals. Thanks!

[rhofmann]

oh yeah - planning on getting a skunk shrimp asap - but a little one so my peppermint shrimp has a chance. I usually go to Aquarium City - any better/additional ideas?

[hoffyz]

I would suggest the Blennies. My favorit is the scooter Blenny but all Blenny could be nice option.