15 fish too many for a 120??

[ethompson]

I have had my 120 4 foot tank up and running for 3 months now. I have a few fish but this is what I want to end up with. This will be a mixed reef tank.

2 Ocellaris Clowns
5 Green Chromis
2 Yellow Clown Gobies
2 Green CLown Gobies
1 Bicolor Blenny
1 Mandarin
1 Coral Beauty
1 Powder Blue Tang


I know this is 15 fish in 120 gallons but most are quite small. I do have plenty of liverock with lots of swimming room, an oversized skimmer, a 5 inch DSB, and a refugium with macro algae.

Is this doable?

[john37]

sounds fine, as long as you dont thow them all in at once.

[ERICinFL]

I've got 12 fish in my 112gal. Four months and so far so good.

[Reef'in Colorado]

That mix of fish sounds very reasonable in a 120.

[ethompson]

Well...it sounds like things are a go then. I currently have the 2 ocellaris clowns, 2 green chromises, 1 yellow clown goby, 1 green clown goby, and one bicolor blenny.

I can't wait to get the rest. It is so hard to be patient but we have probably all learned our lesson on "taking our time".

[teo241]

seems reasonable--only one larger fish. think that would look cool. i only keep 7 in mine, but most of them are considered medium to large.

[NoSchwag]

I'm still new but..

I bet you could double that easily and not have an issue as long as you have your nutrient export in check.

EDIT: Make sure you try your best to get the fish poop to the skimmer. I would imagine all of the poop would fill the DSB pretty quick.

[reef10]

I have the 120 as well and worried about tangs. I think I am going to get a couple of flasher/fairy wrasses instead because they would keep with the many smaller fish look which I like. I have just added one clown gobie how do the gobies act together? Mine resides in the biggest coral.

[ethompson]

The 2 gobies are new. I got them a LFS and put them in my 120 a week ago. I have tried a couple in the past but could never get them to eat. This time the gobies had been at the store for a couple of weeks. I watched them feed and I was finally confident in purchasing them again. The yellow clown sits on top of a dead acro skeleton (i will be getting the real deal for them in a month or 2). He is quite visible and fairly active for a clown goby. When I released the green clown goby he shot like a bullet into the live rock and I didn't see him for a couple of days. I thought he was gone for sure until I saw him hiding in the center of my liverock "atoll ". I still thought he was struggling until I fed the tank some frozen Prime Reef. I watched him devour a several pretty good sized chunks. He is a good eater!
So far the two fish stick to themselves. The yellow is active and visible and the green is like me. He likes to eat a lot of food and then take a nap on his couch (which happens to be out of sight).

I look forward to getting each of these guys/girls a mate and see how they interact.

[phishlet]

I have the following in a 125:

1 hippo tang (medium)
1 purple tang (small)
1 twin spot hogfish
1 hawaiian 12 line wrasse
1 royal gramma
1 ocellaris clown
1 long nose hawk
1 niger trigger (small)
1 bi-color blenny (very small. like 1.25 inches long)
1 randall's goby
6 green chromis
1 green spotted mandarin
1 psych mandarin

But I have an established reef of over 7 years. (Actually some of the coral, live rock and sand is over 12 years old).

My advice would be not to add to many fish too quickly. Your 3 month old reef is still very young. Also, your exhisting chromis might not take to weel to new chromis. If you can, make sure the new chromis are larger than your current ones. They will school if the associate well together. Often times the old ones will quarrel and can kill off the smallest.

Hope this helps.

[phishlet]

Also, I've been more successful keeping even numbers of green chromis. Every time I tried an odd number the smallest would be killed off until an even number remained. I'd go for 6 green chromis.

[Kazz]

Originally posted by NoSchwag
I'm still new but..

I bet you could double that easily and not have an issue as long as you have your nutrient export in check.

That would definitely not be a good idea. How can 30 fish in a 4ft tank possibly be considered acceptable.

This is bad advice!

A general rule of thumb would be 1 fish per 10 gallons of water or there abouts, meaning 15 would be OK but towards the upper limit.

[phishlet]

Agreed. 30 fish in a 120 = bad idea

[chrisguy]

Doesn't the size of the fish have a lot to do with this. I thought the rule was 1" (not one fish) per 10 gallons. So in a 120 you should try to limit yourself to 12" of fish and keep growth in mind.

With all that said, I am over "the rule" in my 120 with my 11 fish.

1 Naso Tang (about 5")
1 Kole Tang (about 2.5")
1 six line wrasse (about 3")
3 green chromis (all about 1")
2 yellow tail damsels (each about 1")
2 yellow striped maroon clowns (one about 1.5" other about 2.5")
1 spotted dottyback (about 2")

I have high flow with both a skimmer and fuge. So far all is good, but I know my DSB will be full more sooner than later.

[NoSchwag]

Originally posted by Kazz
That would definitely not be a good idea. How can 30 fish in a 4ft tank possibly be considered acceptable.

This is bad advice!

A general rule of thumb would be 1 fish per 10 gallons of water or there abouts, meaning 15 would be OK but towards the upper limit.

LOL who's telling the kid to put 30 fish in a 120?

All I was saying was I bet he COULD.. Just my way of telling him that 15 is no problem as long as his nutrient export is in check..

Sheesh...

[nigle]

Oi!

My only comment is that the gobies are so small and will probably [like mine] find a spot in the rocks and not move more than 6 inches from it [in my 75] that they could almost be disreguarded as 'occupants'. Now I know that they ARE fish and are IN the tank but really they can survive very well [as I had in my 6" nano tanks for years with no problems at all] simply because they are so small in don't 'travel' in the flow of the tank that much.

Now as for the bigger fish that is a different matter, and I will make no comment about it since I have a 'yt' in my 75.

Cheers!
nigle
!~!

[Kazz]

People can take things quite literally so that's really not the kind of answer I would expect to see to a new person when someone is asking for help.

Maybe a good idea to keep your responses factual & leave out the sarcasm

[NoSchwag]

Originally posted by Kazz

Maybe a good idea to keep your responses factual & leave out the sarcasm

But I believe the fact is he could support twice as many fish if his nutrient export is in check.

It is very hard for me not to be sarcastic, most of the time I don't even mean to be. I come from the sarcastic part of the US.

[glxtrix]

unfortunately people cant read scarcasm online, but 15 should be ok all depending on size. And no matter how small the fish, you cant disreguard them as occupants, they still eat and poop like other fish adding to the waste collected in the tank. Just start slow, make sure you have nice flow and a great skimmer and you should be fine. good luck.

[nigle]

Oi!

I thought he was responding to my post, maybe not maybe yes, if yes then my comments were about the types of fish in a 125. I could see 30 or 40 clown gobies in a 125 simply because as fish go they are very small and somewhat territoral. You might even be able to breed them, [or not] but my commment about 'discounting' the gobies in the list that he mentioned was only because of that 'type' of fish and the requirements of 'that' type of fish, and that they would be happy in a 5 gal or a 125 gal.

Now adding ANYTING ELSE would be a no no if you had 30 gobies in one 125 tank.

5 tangs is a no no, more than 1 pair of clownfish is a no no, but as for his list, the fish that he mentioned they are all for the most part compatable, and the gobies will for the most part not be seen because they will be hiding in the rocks. Well all the gobies that I ever had hid in the rocks except for when I fed them they they perched on the corals waiting for the food, then dissapeared in the rocks again.

But MY point was that in his list the gobies could be discounted.

Now if all this typing I did was in fact for 'not' because your quick comment was not directed to me then I'm so sorry about that. I try to be as 'complete' as I can when I type but sometimes I think faster than my cold dead fingers can type so I'm sorry that I might have not be as complete in my comments as I should have been.

For the most part I agree with the inch/gal requirements for the larger [and more poopier] fish, but again that is a standard to 'start' with. Since every tank, tank owner, and 'type' of fish is actually different [I.E. my comment about my 'yt' yellow tang which is about 1.5 inches without the tail] in my 75, if it did swim back and forth like mad I would figure that it IS too big for the tank, but it doesn't. It is still a 'kid' and only when my 6 inch neon gets too close does it 'move'. Otherwise it just grazes on the rocks and doesn't try to break out of the glass, which is why I have no problem with keeping it in my 75 gal. Now if it does show some signs of 'get me the heck out of here' I will take it back to my LFS and they will sell it to someone with a bigger tank, I'm not running a concentration camp here, I actually know the requirements of what it is that I own, and for my 'yt' it's not in stress.

As for his list, the gobies can be considered but as 'fish' in the 125 they won't be a burden to the system, IMO.

Cheers!
nigle
!~!

P.S. If in fact you were not typing about me, again I'm sorry for the length of this post.
n.
!~!

[jjmcat]

Anyone see a problem with putting a mandarin in a 3 month old tank.I would wait a bit longer on him or it will starve.Your pods need to be established. my 2 cents

[nigle]

Oi!

It is true that if you have a mandarin in a 'young' tank, the pods have not established
enough to 'feed' it for long. Then again I have seen tanks older than two year that
'STILL' haven't enough pods for it to eat because the reefers have the 'acroporite' mind
set where if you feed you will get nitrates, and the tanks while being very beautiful are fish
and coral tanks with little else growing. After all the reason why there is so much 'life' on
a reef is that the water if 'full' of food [if any of you don't believe then you should have
been in the IMAC lecture about 3 years ago where it mentioned the absolutely HUGE
amount of 'stuff' in the water as it passes over a reef shelf and collected by fine nets, the
ocean if full of food, our tanks are 'clean', but I'm digressing again]

Once again 'the book' says, but we are not all going by 'the book'. Since every reefer,
reef tank is a micro world, everyone will be different, no two will be alike, and what 'the
book' says about one thing might be very successfully not done by one reefer in their reef
tank.

Am I saying that 'the book' is wrong?, no I am not, 'the book' is the best guide line we
have and when it says that a salt water reef tank NEEDS salt in the water we better put
salt in the water.

When 'a book' says that green brittle stars are 'GREEN DEATH' and NEVER NEVER
should be put into a reef tank, many reefers believe 'it'. And [I know never start a
sentence with 'and'] they quote 'a book' with that as a 'rule', but then there is all that
anecdotal evidence to the contrary, I for one believe that 'a book' is totally incorrect
about that one thing, but again that is MY REEF TANK, MY REEF TANK OWNER.

I am not an ''acroporite' reefer, my tanks are fed, I feed my green brittle star BY HAND
so that it doesn't 'need' to kill for food, but this example digresses form the subject of
mandarins in a 3 month old tank.

I had scooters [a kind of pod eating mandarin] and they lived picking at the rocks and
sand, but they also loved mysis, brine shrimp [live and frozen] and they lived for years,
were very happy and 'fat' like me, HA!

So yes 'the book' needs to be consulted when we do ANYTHING with our reefs, but
absolutes in 'the book' are not always what they seem. Some come from anecdotal
evidence some are from anecdotal evidence that has become faith and some comes from
anecdotal evidence that seems to be world wide.

If ALL green brittle stars killed, that's world wide, if ALL mandarins died after wiping
out a 3 month old tank, and NEVER died living in an established tank [IMO over 2
years old] then that is world wide; if some survived and some died then it is faith; if it is a
'crap shoot' as I believe a lot of what 'the book' says then it is all anecdotal and we need
to keep better track of ALL the events in ALL of our reef tanks to remove the anecdotal
'word' all together and create 'faith' and 'world wide' statements.

Now back to the comment, yes it is 'possibly' unlikely that a mandarin will live for long in
a 3 month old tank, but we need more information about the total conditions of THAT
reef tank to make 'educated' comments as opposed to the quick posting of questions and
the quick posting quoting 'the book'.

If you have noticed that when these threads come up where the original question is asked
[simply and succinctly] and when posts to that thread are answered quickly sometimes
the total truth can be not only misunderstood, but slanted way off base and seem [as
some have said] cynical, this is the reason for why I try to type long convoluted
comments in return because as with a diamond, there are 58 facets to each story, not
always a YES NO reply.

Cheers!
nigle
!~!

[ethompson]

Don't worry about the mandarin.

I plan to get my gobies first, followed weeks later by the chromises. Then I'll go with a dwarf angel of some kind. 3 to 4 months from now when my refugium with caulerpa, and 150 pounds of liverock have got the tank full of pods, I'll get the mandarin. Not until at least 7 months in and only if pods are everywhere(which they already are but don't worry...i'm being patient). Then at the end of this summer I'll get a tang, after the other fish have hit their comfort zone. I realize this is a slow process. Lucky for me I don't have any money or I might be more tempted to push things

Thanks for your concerns about my tank occupants. I'm sure they would thank you if they could.
E