Picking your Marine Fish when you new to the hobby is never easy. There are so many varieties to choose from such as Angels, Blennies, Butterflies, Clownfish, Dwarf Parrotfish, Eels, Filefish, Flag Basslets, Gobies, Groupers, Hawkfish, Hogfish, Puffer Fish, Seahorses, Tangs, Triggers, Wrasse marine fish, with most of the desirable ones like puffer’s angels & butterflyfish being unsuitable for reef tanks.
Here is the Marine World Aquatics Guide to the best marine fish to start your reef tank.
Tank Bred Common clown
Clownfish need no introduction and are the most popular marine fish to be kept in aquariums. Famous for their anemone homes, most clownfish are captive bred these days and don’t need them. There are now lots of varieties to choose from with hardy and easy to keep. They may even pair off and lay eggs. Keep one pair per tank.
Bangai Cardinalfish
Bangai Cardinal fish or Long Fin Cardinal fish is a very attractive fish with a simple yet sophisticated Color scheme and marking. Its overall body colouration is a shimmering silver, highlighted with pearly white spots. Bold, black stripes along the body accentuate the long fins to elegant effect. Marine World Aquatics proudly offers captive-bred Bangai Cardinal fish bred and reared in Indonesia and Asia that are hardier than their wild-harvested counterparts.
The Bangai Cardinal is relatively easy to breed in the aquarium setting. Once spawning has occurred, the male carries the eggs in his mouth to protect them.
The Banggia Cardinal should be fed small quantities of food several times per day consisting of a well-balanced diet which includes enriched frozen brine shrimp and Mysis shrimp, along with a quality marine pellet or flake food.
Six-line wrasse
The six-line wrasse stays small, is hardy but also performs a useful task in the aquarium, eating pests like flatworms. Every reef tank needs a wrasse to keep pest numbers down and six-line wrasse, also known as pyjama wrasses, are easy to keep widely available and good value for money at Marine World Aquatics were all are fish pre-treated Quarantined and eating before sold.
Royal gramma
Royal Gramma is an instant crowd-pleaser with its yellow and magenta split body colouration. It’s also a great reef fish being well behaved, straight forward to keep and suitable for both new and smaller marine aquariums. Grammas like to keep within caves we recommend using Caribsea life Rock Shapes to provide shady areas that they can hang out in or next to during the day.
Blue/Green Chromis
Individually, Blue/Green Chromis don’t look very spectacular but as a group, and when kept with Anthias and a Yellow tang they look stunning. A shoaling species of damselfish they are 100% reef safe, peaceful and easy to keep, as long as you keep them in groups of five or more and feed them regularly. Best when kept in tanks of 200 litres or more in shawls with a good variety of rock work.
Firefish
There are different species of Firefish and all are lovely and suitable for the reef aquarium. Firefish are the most common with a red back end and a white head and body, and they’re suitable either on their own in a small aquarium or kept in groups in larger aquariums.
They like a hole to retreat to when they feel threatened and are disease resistant but may jump out so fit Jump Guard to stop them from leaping from your aquarium.
Yellow tang
Yellow tangs well, I can’t say much about these as these are the most desirable fish in reef aquarium are slightly more sensitive than the other six but are massively popular because of their bright yellow colour and the fact that they spend all day grazing algae.
They need aquarium of 300 litres of a minimum of 1200mm. These are easier to keep than most tangs, less aggressive and territorial, and less susceptible to Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, commonly called ich or ick.
Always include Nori or seaweed in their diet.
The Six golden rules of buying marine fish
· Mature the tank using bacteria ATM COLONY
· Test the water for ammonia and nitrite with good Test Kit
· Quarantine first
· Add Livestock slowly
· Do your research
· Only purchase from quality stockiest Marine World Aquatics
