Going to be adding a new fish, opinions?

Well, I've decided to add another fish to my tank. I have a 55 gal. reef with 20 gal. sump. I currently have a medium yellow tang, yellow tailed damsel, yellow watchman goby and two clowns. I think my bio load is still relatively small, as the goby, clowns and damsel don't produce much waste. I have several fish in mind and plan on trading in some corals to get store credit to buy the fish. The fish in mind are

1. Mandarin (preferably red, but green is more common)
2. Valentini Puffer
3. Flasher wrasse

I know I previously posted about the puffer, and I know it's not reef safe, at least generally, but that fish is one of the reasons I got into this hobby. I don't care if it messes with the snails/crabs, but if I get it, I may trade my cleaner shrimp for something to a local reefer. I have half my tank covered, and am working on getting the other half covered with acrylic so if I get the wrasse, it won't jump out (like my other two wrasses). So if any body as any comments, let me know.

 

i love the wrasse, i just got a foxface rabbitfish 2 days ago and love him

 

I’d stay away from the puffer – beautiful but problematic. I’d pick up the Mandarin and the Wrasse and be a happy camper

 

I think the flasher wrasse would be the best choice. The mandarin is cool but quite a hassle to feed, and the puffer won't allow you to have a full reef which I'm guessing you'll probably want in the future.

 

flasher fan here. id go for that. so many cool and colorful choices to make.

 

from experience: my yellow tang is the big guy in my tank. I recently added a mccoskers flasher and at first there was a lot of showing and dominance displays from the tang. after three days the tang settled down and the mccoskers came out regularly.
the flasher wrasse is my most active fish now, all over the tank, very peaceful, and beautiful!

the tang only gets nippy towards the female clown and flasher while im feeding... so a flasher will probably be a good addition

 

Thanks guys, I'm think I'm heading towards the wrasse too, but I can't get the puffer out of my mind, I'll see what the lfs has. K+

 

I'd go for the wrasse, too.

 

Thanks for the karma Divott, and yes it does.

 

I got my mccosker flasher wrasse from liveaquaria.com for my 55gal and he is gorgeous. Very active... the show piece of my young tank.

I also got scared away from the mandarin based on feeding sensitivities. The more I researched them, the more concerned I got on longevity of keeping it alive and feeding it. Definitely concluded that you needed a long term established tank to have a chance of keeping one.

Highly recommend the flasher wrasse, love mine.

M