most dartfish would be alright (fire fish and purple fire fish being most commonly seen)

whiteray/blackray shrimp gobys (Stonogobiops spp)

twinspot goby (Signigobius biocellatus)

Neon Goby (Gobiosoma oceanops)

sharknose goby (Gobiosoma evelynae)

clown gobys like the yellow clown goby (Gobiodon okinawae)

rainford's goby (Amblygobius rainfordi)

other shrimp goby's less than about 10cm (yep i got bored of writing them out from me book)

Bicolour blenny (Ecsenius bicolor)

sixline wrasse, fourline wrasse, eightline wrasse

all flasher wrasse

avoid twinspot coris they get to 4ft long!!

avoid all damsels (and clownfish) other than percula/ocellaris/pink skunk/maldives clownfish

angelfish - only dwarfs:
potters
flame
herald's
lemonpeel
coral beauty
cherub

Edit: Avoid tangs as they all get too big for nano tanks IMO

banggai cardinal (Pterapogon kauderni)
Pajama cardinal (Sphaeramia nematoptera)

can keep longnose hawk fish but may eat shrimp and dartfish type fish

flame hawkfish will eat snails and crabs as will most other hawkfish

jawfish are ok but at least 3" of sand must be provided for burrow construction

Assessor species will generally be ok

royal gramma's are good (Gramma loreto) MUST NOT BE CONFUSED WITH THE ROYAL DOTTYBACKi have seen fish shops label these as royal gramma's, but they are far more aggressive and will eat small shrimp

avoid all other dottybacks as they are highly aggressive to similar fish and each other, possible exception being the orchid dottyback, may pick on firefish and goby's

Chalk bass (Serranus tortugarum)

Lanturn bass (Serranus baldwini)

avoid scorpion fish, waspfish, frog fish and all lion fish as they will eat all your other fish, the only lion fish that could fit in the tank on its own would be the twinspot (Dendrochirus biocellatus)

you could even keep some of the smaller moray eels in this size tank but it'd be the only fish in it

could keep common seahorses (Hippocampus kuda) and pipefish (only one pipefish and maybe a pair of seahorses with no corals at all just the dead twig type ones) but these are both very delicate and picky eaters that shouldn't be tried by anyone but very experienced marine keepers

other possible seahorses:
Thorny seahorse (H. histrix)
Lined seahorse 9H. erectus)
Dwarf seahorses (H. zosterae)

this all depends on what sort of set-up you want though



Inverts
shrimp crabs snails etc

i'd personally go for 1 cleaner shrimp and 1-2 peppermint shrimp in a 10-15 Imp. gallon tank, or you could have some sexy shrimp if your fish aren't large enough to eat them (most will eat them)

a couple of hermit crabs for every 15 Imp. gallons, but just becareful of the soft corals as the crabs can damage them and may pull snails out of the shells (killing them) so they can have the shell

mithrax crabs (Mithrax sculptus) are great for eating algae, one or 2 of these would be better than hermits

snails, probably start of with a couple of turbo snails and star snails (Astraea) and maybe go up to 5 or 6 per 15 Imp. gallons as a maximum if you have enough algae growth to support them

starfish
avoid blue linka's like the plague few last more than a year so shouldn't be sold IMO
avoid green brittle stars (Ophiarachna incrssata) they aren't called the green death for nothing, they'll eat all yor fish and shrimp etc

brittle/serpent stars may be ok while small though

all star fish get too big eventually, and sand sifters may keep the sand turned over but they eat all life out of it them starve to death

if you buy a feather duster worm then you must feed phytoplankton and zooplankton (rotifers) on a regular basis, if you wanted you could culture your own with 2L drinks bottles and a flourescent tube or 2 provideing 24/7 lighting for the phytoplankton, you then feed some of these cultures to the rotifers and some to the tank, the rotifers can be fed to the tank you must feed the phyto plankton with certain fertilisers. if you do this then you could keep a scallop as well

no urchins, octopi, squid, cuttlefish, lobsters, mantis shrimp, nudibranchs, oysters, clams and jellyfish



corals (not my favourite of things lol)

most soft corals like toadstools, fingers, leathers etc will be ok, star polyps, xenia etc will be fine, mushrooms will be ok this is as long as you have bright T5 lighting.

suncorals can be hidden under a overhang as they dont use light, but must be fed daily to keep them healthy and growing

avoid anemones, they'd need a little higher lighting IMO and are more trouble than they are worth

aboid all hard corals again IMO as they only really do best under MH lighting, IMO also avoid all sponges

about it really, just monitor your calcium and magnesium levels as they use these elements, Ca should be about 450 and Mg about 1500

Thats really helpfull! will someone pin it?

WTF? you've read it all ready?!?!?! it's taken me most of the evening to write that

lol no i've scanned through it Read most of it though!

Mate thats brilliant!!! Thanx for taking the time to do that! I am gonna print that off and while I am waiting for my tank to cycle over the next few weeks I am going to research these fish and take a look at them 'live' before I make my choice.
I am guessing that a mixture of any 4 MAXIMUM from your list would be ok then???

a mixture of 3 of them would be good, but 4 would be the absolute limit after a 6month period of fish being in there

but a fair few of the fish wont go with certain other fish/corals/inverts, so it's basicaly plan what corals and inverts you want then plan your fish around them, or pland the coral and inverts around the fish

but all them fish are in the Marine Fishes book by Scott W. Michael (that really beat up book that i showed you at the shop, it's like the 3rd copy in 12 months or sommat like that lol)

and the marine invertebrates book in the same series is very good too, but not used as much by me or customers

but when you get an idea of the fish you want you can run them past all of us here and we can try to thin out anything that you wont want, if you have a main fish you want

Why would you recommend not having any Damsel fish? I was looking at the Yellow tail or Blue Damsel.

How big do Coral Tangs get?

no damsels (apart from the likes of clowns) as they are very aggressive *BEEP*'s

if you added one first as many people do as they are hardy, then you tend to end up with just the single damsel in the tank as they'll kill the other fish as most nano tanks are too small for them to only make a smallish territory, if added last then they may be ok, but i'd not risk it

coral tangs, tbh i've never heard of them, if you could find a picture of one on internet then i'd be able to advise on size etc much easier, but no tangs are really suited to nano tanks


but also it's not just the size of the fish, it's how active they are

Sorry meant regal tang or yellow tang

I just don't know what fish to go for, i want different colours and interesting fish, im definitely going to get a Occelaris Clown Fish and Bengal or Spotted Cardinal (haven't decided). Not sure what else to get, think a Flame Angel may be a little too expensive.