fish Suggestions for Nano?
 

I am going through a rebuild on mY 39g tank. Sunoka relieved me of my urchin who was bulldozing my rock and breaking coral. Soon I hope to get rid of the reef lobster who is a nasty bit of business. Once he is gone I can re aqua scape and add some wildlife.

So I hope to restock with some new inverts and fish. I currently have two clowns. I want to replace my yellow clown goby, lobster must have got the first one.

Considering a goby, Bennie, yellow tailed damsel. Also Looking for a small, calm herbivorous fish to keep algae under control.

What would you suggest for a nano?

I would skip the damsel will get aggressive

What if it was added last?

It might help slim chance it will help

If you get a Damsel it is very likely you will have to get rid of it once it is mature, particularly in such a small tank. You could get lucky, but you would be the exception. Putting an aggressive, territorial fish with those other peaceful fish isn't likely to work out.

The Hectors Goby is great nano fish, with the Rainfords Goby being a close second in my book.

Nano fish
 

I'm running a couple of biocubes: 14 & 29 gallon. Here are my recommendations for a peaceful tank.
1) I recently became a big fan of having a single flasher wrasse in each. They are not aggressive but will extend their fins and "flash" to other fish e.g. clowns, firefish etc. They add colour and beauty.
2) For gobies, I like the high fin black ray gobies and the other shrimp gobies paired with a colourful randall's shrimp (tiger striped get too big for the high fins). Neon gobies are also interesting but they will pull food out of the mouths of the corals even though their bellies are already full to bursting!
3) Firefish are always good but can be secretive; only coming out when food is present.
4) If you can provide the necessary food, dragonets are amazing in their swimming abilities; hovering vertically or upside down as they peck at the live rock.
:smile:

I will echo some of the suggestions and add a couple of my own....

flasher wrasses are great little fish.....pod eating machines.....a bit of a flight risk so a top for the tank is recommended
firefish are great little fish too ....can be secretive and can be out in the open, depends a lot on tank mates....severe flight risk
grammas are great
assessors are among my favs
stongiobiops (yasha/ dracula) goby/ pistol pairs are cool.....flight risk and need sand
jawfish are cool....flight risk and need sand
as for as a small algae eating fish..... tailspot or bi-colour blenny......lawmowers and starry blennies are good, but may be borderline too big for your tank....all blennies are flight risks

I would not recommend any dragonet/ scooter blenny for a tank that small .....UNLESS you are 100% certain it is eating a prepared food....also would not combine the dragonets with wrasses, too much competition for food.....I know someone will chime in and contradict what Im saying, but people being successful with these fish in smaller tanks are the exception not the rule....

I would also not recommend the hectors/ranifords gobies.....they are a very difficult fish to get eating a prepared food and more often then not end up starving out....

Damsels is evil....plain and simple.....

don't do it, they are a pain and only suitable for large tank with big fish in it.

I bought a yellow belly damsel and I have a dottyback. At first the orchid dottyback was holding its ground to the damsel but after a week I had to give the damsel away because I found my dottyback one morning with all shredded fins and in poor condition. The choice between a 55$ orchid dottyback and an 8$ damsel was easy to make :)

Good thing it was in a nano aquarium and it was easy to remove the liverock because they are a nightmare to catch.

My tank is a bit smaller then yours, 35g cube. My stock list at the moment is 2 ocellaris, 1 cherub angel, one bangai cardinal and one scooter dragonet. My tank is very peaceful and I enjoy watching it all day :)