72 Gallon Reef build. "001"

Well I wouldn't start the tank off with 3 fish, so I would say start with a single fish like a Goby. And it would be either a Goby or the Hawkfish. Otherwise the Goby would likely become a nice meal :/

 

very nice

 

Love hawkfish! Your girlfriend has good taste in fish

 

Yeah, I was wondering if 3 would be a bad idea for first addition. Well I guess it'll be a hawkfish. We are trying to go with fish that have more color.

Well, she is basically incharge of picking fish.: One of the deals for me getting into the hobby. haha

 

Good call. Although as mentioned, be aware that Hawkfish can eat smaller fish, especially bottom dwellers like Gobies. But get a nice small one if you do get one. They are beautiful fish!

 

Well, I just couldn't stand my aquascape so I completely re did it. I think it turned out fairly well. I think it looks a bit more "reefy":



We also got our first addition! In fact, it isn't a fish at all. Its a spider decorator crab! I know he can potentially be harmful towards smaller coral but I couldn't resist. He probably has about $15-$20 of coral on him. I even saw him gobble down a bristle worm yesterday.



My friend and owner of my LFS knowing its my first tank, threw in a piece of live rock that had a feather duster on it. A pretty cool little guy.



My girlfriend also had the store order me a coral beauty dwarf angel. Since the hawkfish are semi aggressive I didn't want o limit myself. ;D

 

Looking really nice! I used to have one of those crabs - he was super hardy and made it through our 6 day power outage back in '08. They aren't deemed to be reef safe but you already know that. I have a lyretail hawkfish and the cool thing about him is that he just perches throughout the tank. I have not observed any aggression toward tank mates.

There was someone on here a while back that had a flamehawk that dive bombed every picture he posted. It was too funny.....the little black circled eyes appeared in every shot.

 

Thanks oldfish! Yeah, these crabs seems to be brutes. I figure if I don't get too small of corals or frags he wont hurt them too badly.

That's awesome that your hawkfish is peaceful. Hopefully my coral beauty comes in soon. Should be a pretty addition. Any experience with these?

 

Big things this week, the first fish is in! My coral beauty dwarf angel has been successfully added and has fallen in love with the aquascape. She squeezes in and out every nook and cranny she can find. Going strong for a few days now.




We also picked up a few more things this morning. Got a full cleaning crew of sorts. 6 tiny hermit crabs, 1 turbo snail, 2 Astrea snails and 3 nassarius snails. They should help out a bit.

We couldn't resist these cool little bush plants. We also added 3 of these. They really give the tank a more "alive" feel and a bit of color.




Lastly, I put a down payment on my first coral. 4 heads of a bicolor frogspawn that is about an inch and a half tall. Just to be safe they are going to hold it for me for about a month so i can make sure the tank is ready for coral.

Example pic. (taken from google image) forgot to snap a pic in the shop:-[

 

Beautiful fish, congrats. Feed her good stuff.