Fish Selection

[bcopenhaver]

I would like to add some fish to my 39 gallon fish tank. I currently have a Yellow Tang, Clown, Chocolate Chip Star, Serpent Star, Snails and several Frags. I am new to the hobby, learning as I go. What fish do you veterans recommend?

[Squishie89]

Gobies or blennies are always good choices. Personally I would suggest selling/giving away the tang so it can be in a bigger tank. Cardinal, filefish, dottyback, small wrasses and basslets are also choices. You could also potentially get your clown a mate.

[molcott]

that chocolate chip will lay waste to your frags as well

[Drdavis]

I would like to add some fish to my 39 gallon fish tank. I currently have a Yellow Tang, Clown, Chocolate Chip Star, Serpent Star, Snails and several Frags. I am new to the hobby, learning as I go. What fish do you veterans recommend?

What types of fish do you like? Burrowing? Schooling?

 

Because of the tank size and your current selection I would look for a gobi for something on the bottom. The Bangaii Cardinals have always been my favorite.

 

 

Because you have corals I would get rid of that chocolate chip star.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[davelin315]

Would echo the chocolate chip star sentiments.  They will eat anything including your fish if given the opportunity.

 

Everyone has opinions on tangs but as long as it's fairly small you should be OK for awhile.  If I recall correctly, a 39 is pretty tall?  Isn't that a 20 gallon high footprint but double the height?  In a tank like that you will want to look for fish that don't necessarily swim around a lot but that are fairly still or like to orient themselves vertically rather than horizontally.  Royal Grammas or other basslets (Black Cap, Assessors, etc.), fish that hover like cardinals as suggested, or fish that are relatively poor swimmers might be good ideas.  I had a 37 gallon years ago and kept a lionfish in it along with a small valenti puffer and a small niger trigger but as the lionfish grew the space ended up being deadly to the puffer and the trigger (was not a good size for them anyway) as they couldn't swim by the lionfish without getting stabbed.  My stupidity also resulted in me being stung by the lionfish so I got what I deserved for putting large fish into a vertical tank.

 

If the assumption that it's a vertical tank is wrong, then you can probably throw out some of the things I said and potentially go with some cool wrasses (get a screen on top of the tank).  Again, though, ditch the chocolate chip star as it will hunt down sleeping wrasses and eat them.