180 gallon stocking suggestions

I have a 180 gallon that is cycling now and should be ready to start stocking in a couple weeks. I was wanting to get some suggestions on what fish/coral to start with. The tank is 6' long with 250lbs of live rock, 2-3" sand bed and a decent led lighting system. Right now, there is 1,000 gph in flow from the sump and 3 1,400gph power heads in the tank (will probably add a couple more).

I want to keep an overall peaceful tank with a mix of corals and inverts. What would some of your suggestions be for a stocking list and stocking order? Some of what I like includes: yellow tangs, emperor blue tang, jawfish, angels (any that are reef safe anyway?) or really anything that is bright and colorful.

For corals I like most anything, the brighter the color and more vivid the better, so suggestions on whatever is the easiest to start with would be appreciated.

As far as inverts go I like all the different kinds of shrimp, hermit crabs, and sand sifting creatures.

Thanks for any help and suggestions on this, I plan on taking the stocking extremely slow, so again, suggestions on the stocking order are appreciated as well.

 

The livestock selection is a matter of personal choice, but this might help.

You can go to Aquarium Fish: Tropical Freshwater Fish and Saltwater Fish for Home Aquariums to check out all the different corals, fish, etc. Even if you are not interested in buying online, they have very helpful care sheets on all their livestock. I've never ordered online, but a lot of folks say they're the best, if you are interested.

You should start with a couple of fish and the clean-up crew, and go slow. I'd suggest waiting at least 3 months before adding any corals, and only then if you haven't had any problems.

 

Thanks Mr Bill,

I've been on that site before and it is a good one for reference. I'm definitely in no hurry, I just kinda want to have a 6 month - 1 year plan as far as stocking goes, especially if a certain species needs to be added before another, etc.

 

That's a pretty good plan. If you stay with community safe/reef safe fish, you should have no problems with stocking order. What you have listed are quite peaceful, but Angels (depending on which species) may or may not be reef safe, so be sure to research before buying. Keep a close eye on your chemistry, only add 2 or 3 at a time, and you should be fine.

As far as corals and inverts, you can add several at a time. Just make sure your chemistry is stable and the water is pristine. Are you using RO/DI water? If not, I recommend you start. It will save you a lot of grief in the long run.

 

Yeah, I really like some of them such as the flame angel, but I think most all of them nip corals too much for me to tolerate.

A RO/DI filter was my second purchase, after the tank

 

Look at some wrasses, I favor the halichoeres genus. They are all very colorful and active

 

Yes, I've been looking at those and I think they would be great for my tank as well. Lots of very nice colors and most of the ones that I've been looking at don't seem to get "huge" which I like.

 

I made the trip up to Premium Aquatics yesterday to pick up some live rock. I had planned on getting some cured Fiji to finish out my tank, but I ended up getting the Manado rock. This stuff is really nice, lots of nice color and shapes. I'm definitely glad I made the trip up there and checked it out in person instead of just having them ship me the Fiji rock.

They had several nice corals/fish/inverts as well, but I'm still going through my cycle so maybe I'll take another trip up in a few weeks

They had several nice specimens of some of the fish mentioned in these posts.