Zookeeper's Lounge

Hi everyone!
I am getting a saltwater aquarium soon (Yay!) and I was wondering if anyone knew some really cool fish to get. Ones that look regular aren't the ones I'm looking for. I used to have regular freshwater fish, but it was a little boring after awhile, so we are changing! Any ideas?
Requirements: Non-venemous or poisonous, less than 1' in length after fully grown, can't cost a whole lot, can't eat other fish, maybe one that is either odd in shape or odd in behaviour please, can't be too hard to take care of for avreage tank owners
Thanks for all of your posts!

Hey Mica... if you want to know more about fishkeeping, please PM me for my forum. Saltwater fishkeeping is quite a bit more demanding than freshwater, but it's certainly doable I would suggest that you make sure you have plenty of live rock, as it provides biological filtration...

as for fish, here are some suggestions:

a hawkfish (though not with moving invertebrates like shrimp)
a yellow-headed jawfish
a smaller wrasse of some sort (but not a cleaner wrasse - they are obligate parasitivores and won't last long in captivity... also avoid bigger ones like lunar wrasses, broomtail wrasses, etc...)

you'll also want to steer clear of lionfish and their relatives (like stonefish) and marine catfish, because they are venomous. Tangs and surgeonfish are also dangerous because they have a very sharp "weapon" by their tails, but they're not likely to use it on you unless you corner them with your hand or something...

may I ask, how big is your tank?

clownfish!

If you want clownfish and you think you'll want more than one, you should get them at the same time at a young age so they don't have territory issues... if you get two small captive raised ones, (about 3/4 of an inch) then they'll grow up into a pair (no guarantees on breeding though)... but clownfish aren't generally thought of as unusual fish...

Another one is cardinalfish - pajama or bangaii... they're pretty cool looking, but not so great if you want a lot of movement...

lions fish always look nice wraths do aswell but will eat small fish royal damseys (sp) key hole angles look amazing but are hard to find hippo tangs do aswell (these are a few of my favorites from my tank)

Here is my tank size: Length: 3'10", Width: 1', and Height: 1'6"
That is why fish have to be less than 1', or else it wouldn't be able to turn in my aquarium!

That's about a 46 gallon tank. You won't really want anything over 6", because you'll have too much bioload in your tank. So stick with the smaller critters like clownfish and chromis and cardinalfish and jawfish, etc. And make sure you don't overstock. You can't put as many fish in a saltwater tank as freshwater of the same size because salt water dissolves less oxygen.

what about a picaso fish (spelling incorrect..I think) I forgot how big they get but they look funny ^.^

They do look cool, but they get over a foot long, and they will either eat smaller fish or nip their fins down to about nothing... really not the best community fish :-/

Sharks... MANY sharks!

Wally wrote: Sharks... MANY sharks!

Hey! I was going to say that. Anyways sharks make good pets!

no they dont! They need much larger tanks than you have... on the order of 1000+ gallons, even for "small" species (that get to about three feet long) as well as pristine water conditions. Please don't get a shark!