dave_b, that might well have worked but I wouldn’t have dared try it due to not knowing what the effect on the water chemistry would have been. If I had actually lived on the coast where I could just toss out a casting net and haul in some salt-or-fresh-tolerant estuary victims like mollies then sure, but salt water fish from inland pet stores are bloody expensive.
Of course nowadays, being a bit better educated about what harvesting those gorgeous reef fishes does to reef fish populations, I wouldn’t buy any of them at all. My tanks all got demoted to hamster habitat and eventually given away to younger families when my own kids lost interest.
