Potential Combatibilty Issues in Predator tank

[cdagostino]

Set up
75 gallon tank w/ large sump (maybe 20 gallons); Precision Marine bullet series skimmer. Not sure on my water change regiment yet, but I can do big changes if necessary. Used to be a reef tank now converting it to a predator tank. Lots of live rock but I am going to move some of it into the sump to free up swimming room in the tank.

Proposed inhabitants
--2 gold maroone Clownfish w/ anemone: One 4inches (has been in the tank forever) and going to try to add a smaller one at about 2inches
--Niger Triggerfish:3.5-5inches
--Volitan lionfish: 3-5inches
--porcupine puffer: 3.5-5.5 inches
--Snoflake or zebra Moray: 9-12inches
--scorpian fish: 4 inches
--bird wrasse 4.5-6.5

Leftover from the reef and hopefully can find a way to remove from tank
--Copperband butterfly: 4 inches
--Yellow bellow hippo tan: 5 inches
--Yellowtaildamsel: 2 inches
--Lawnmower Bleeny 3 inches
--Spotted Cardinal: 2.5 inches

Concerns questions
--I know the spotted cardinal and the bleeny wouldn't make it and maybe the butterfly wouldn't either but what about the hippo?
--I wouldn't mind taking all the old reef fish out but it is going to be really hard to catch them, any suggestion on how to catch them that dont involve taking all the rock out?
--I read somewhere that the clown fish were not compatible with the lionfish? Why not? Shouldn't they be protected in their anemone?
--Any other compatibility problems?
--Are there simply too many fish for a 75 gallon?

 

[Killerdrgn]

Wow thats quite a bit of fish for a 75.

 

[Pinkheine]

You will most certainly have a very active tank We had nearly every fish you mentioned minus the clown fish and the scorpion in our fish only tank before we went reef.

We had:

Niger Trigger
Blue Throat Trigger
Undulated Trigger
Pink Tail Trigger
CLown Trigger
Goldentail eel (my favorite-- more docile IMO of the eels)
Porcupine Puffer
Lion
Male and Female Bird Wrasse
Narrowline Puffer

Our tank was a 170g with only a few ornamental pieces and some live rock in a pile for the eel.

Only troubles we had in our tank was when it was feeding time sometimes a fish would get stabbed by the lion... by swimming into him. Mainly it would cloud an eye for a day or two and then the fish would be fine. Not sure if a Lion could do more damage or not, but that was all we experienced. He was a big boy. And a lot of chasing went on... but no damage to anyone. I used to call it the fish frolic.

I have never heard of clowns and lions not being able to mix.. maybe because eventually the lion would inevitably be large enough to eat them?

How much rock are you planning on keeping in the tank? That would make the determination on whether or not it is too much fish for the tank really. And the more "hostile" fish are going to take on a specific piece of the tank as theirs. Our Undulated thought the entire tank was his and constantly was moving about. So that may be an issue. We felt we overstocked, but we winged it and it worked out well. Maybe it was dumb luck maybe not, but it was good for a number of years that way.

As for catching the fish, we had bought the fish trap thingy after the soda bottle trick did nothing for us to get the damsels out. We got all but one, he remained for close to a year before the lion was big enough to eat him.

The thing that we found hardest when starting with the predator type tank in the beginning was the stress level of the fish and the bringing on ick. We used hyposalinity to get rid of that as all of the fish had some at one point. It was a nightmare.

Good Luck. This thread makes me miss my fish No room for multiple tanks though.