maroon clowns and a mandarin?

[Ram_Puppy]

When I was planning on sticking with the 30 hex, you guys wisely educated me that even with a fuge, I probably couldn't keep a mandarin in it, much less with two maroon clowns which are aggresively territorial and would have beat up on the mandarin.

Do you guys think this still holds true now that I have a 115 gallon cube on the way?

Obviously, with the fuge and the 115 I have a much higher chance of success on keeping the mandarin (infact it is the fish I want the most so the tanks whole design centers around pod production) but in a larger tank is there enough room to put maroons in? In the grand scheme of things, a 30 gallon hex (9 inch sides) is not all that much smaller than a 30 X 30 inch cube... when compared to the great wide ocean...

I have a pair of black ocellarius on order but in the long view, they are second fiddle to the maroons... but if the compatibility issue doesn't weigh out in favor of it, I surely won't do it.

Your thoughts?

oh, and can't wait to meet you all this sunday!

[::pete::]

I had a Maroon in a 100 with a Green Spot Mandarin and had no problems.

[Ram_Puppy]

pete, thanks, did the maroon ever establish a territory? how long did you have this set up?

[Ram_Puppy]

oh, and to be clear on eventual stocking:

All I have planned vertebrate wise in this tank is the following:

2 clowns (either marron or black ocellarius)
2 mandarins (1 male, one female if I can find one)
1 helfrichi Firefish
1 Dwarf Angel (haven't decided which one yet.)
1 MAYBE a lemon peel tang. not sure yet though, I want to keep stocking on fish light.

[MikeP]

Mandarins are left alone by most fish - something to do with their body slime being toxic/unpalatable. I would think one would be ok in a 115 with sufficient live rock and a auxilary refugium. Keep in mind the dwarf angel will also pick at micro crustaceans and possibly devoid it of enough food. These fish need to graze constantly.

[::pete::]

pete, thanks, did the maroon ever establish a territory? how long did you have this set up?

Yes, the maroon had its territory, but did move about the tank. It was up for @ 1yr before I took it down.

[Ram_Puppy]

thanks Pete, mike. I am going to go ahead and strike the dward angel for now, and I think I am back to having maroons.

[witecap4u]

My maroon clowns rarely go more that 12" away from their host anemone, so they should be fine if they have a host.

cs

[Instar]

All of my maroons establish a territory of about 1 cubic foot. They let selected tankmates in that area and others are run out of that area.

A 30 by 30 inch cube might support a mandarin if you really provide a lot of pod growing stucture and have a good culture going in that tank. It will help to feed the pods as well as keep a slight trace of iodine in the system via either an additive or frequent water changes.

[Ram_Puppy]

That is the plan larry, I am going to try and wedge a 40 gallon fuge in under the stand along side the sump. In the fuge i am trying to design it not so much for macro algae export (though that will be a major design contribution) but lots of places for pods to breed. I am thinking of doing a couple different sections of the fuge bottom, for instance, having a bottom section with miracle mud, and another bottom section that is nothing but reef rubble and garf grunge. and of course an area with some live rock. THe grunge and live rock should be adequate to produce a major pod population. If it needs to be supplimented, I will probably try and somehow create a 'pod hotel' I have heard of people using filter pads and other porus objects for this, perhaps some aragocrete made with a ton of spaghetti in it would do the job.