Do I have too many fish?

[SOS]

Just wondering what you all think. I keep reading about nutrients, fish poop, too much this, not enough that.

My tank is a 70gal 36x18x24 with a 20gal sump. Its been set up for about 1.5 years.

I use a Bubble Magus BM160 skimmer and have been running gfo in a reactor. Also running a ca reactor and a small amount of kalk ( 0.5 tsp per gal in topoff).

I'm getting wonderful growth with my sps but they are browned out. Only new growth shows good colours. I don't need to get into a colour debate as I've searched and read all I can handle! Just want your opinion on my fish.

I feed several times a day in small amounts with flake, cyclopeeze flakes, 1 mysis cube per day and usually another cube of something for the day. I mix up frozen formula 1, hikari mega marine, brine, pe mysis, hikari mysis.

I need to feed heavily to keep my chromis happy. If I feed any less they start to pick on each other. Imo well fed chromis are happy schooling chromis.

Here's my fish list. What do you think? Too many for an sps tank? Does anyone else have this kind of bioload?

5x blue/green chromis
1x dusky jawfish
1x 3" watchman goby
1x 5" foxface
1x small angel (can't remember the type...blue with yellow face)
2x tomato clowns. The female is about 3", male about 1"
1x 3" coris wrasse

 

[lolgranny]

I would say no. In my 75g sps tank i have 11 and everything is doing fine!

 

[mike_cmu04]

I dont think you are overstocked but i would not add any more

 

[allsps40]

I feel you should be fine with your fish load and skimmer.

 

[aquaph8]

I also think your ok.

 

[returnofsid]

Well, that's 12 fish, in a 75, so possibly. The other possibility is that the excessive feeding is causing too much nutrients, which would cause the browning of your SPS corals.

You don't mention what kind of lighting you're running.

 

[Grant W]

I didn't see your water test results? That would help if you are trying to figure out the browning issue.

 

[soggyfollicles]

I didn't see your water test results? That would help if you are trying to figure out the browning issue.

+1. It sounds like you feed very heavily to keep the chromis happy, so it really depends on your filtration techniques. How are your nitrates, and which testing kits are you using?

 

[SOS]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry I didn't put any test info as I wanted to know more about my fish numbers than anything else. Here are my test numbers:

Lighting is a single 400w 20k Radium.

KH: 9
Ca: 410
Mg: 1300
Po4: 0 but on an elos kit. Don't have a "real" tester
No3: 0-ish. Again on an elos kit.
SG: 1.025

The only colour I can keep well is green. All my other acros show great blue + purple fresh growth, but turn brown at the bodies.

I do an 8% water change once a week with 0 tds ro/di water.

I don't have any nuisance algae issues besides some cyano but it seems to come and go.

 

[aday2remmbr]

i would ditch the angel, even if its a dwarf angel that one fish pushes you over to slightly overstocked imo, 12 fish in a 70 gallon is pretty overstocked. especially with the foxface which wil probably get 3 inches bigger.

 

[SOS]

+1. It sounds like you feed very heavily to keep the chromis happy, so it really depends on your filtration techniques. How are your nitrates, and which testing kits are you using?

Elos test kit and nitrates show at the bottom of the scale. Besides wet skimming and water changes, what other filtration methods can I use? I don't really want to open up a can of worms with things like vodka, biopellets, zeo or whatever if I don't need to..

 

[twiggyb]

Do you have macro algae for nutrient export in the ump or somewhere else?

 

[twiggyb]

I have a high bio load in my tank with the same measurements which I thought was a 65g? I have 13 fish, which will be moving to a 225 hopefully at the end of summer, and my montis died off, except for my red cap, and sps started to brown out due to my ro units membrane crappin out. There still were some acros that kept their color, but nothing was real happy. Maybe you could double check perams with an LFS just rule something like that out? Before my ro unit crappin out everything was decently colored, and my nitrates usually range from 10-20. I don't run a skimmer. All I do is 15g wc every Monday.

 

[SOS]

Do you have macro algae for nutrient export in the ump or somewhere else?

No I don't have any macro algae for nutrient export. My sump is dark with a few pieces of LR.

 

[twiggyb]

Might help battle your cyano problem, but I could be wrong.

 

[MammothReefer]

I have 26 fish between my display/frag tank about 100 gallons total. (sigh need to get rid of a few). Either way carbon dosing/gfo will do the trick for reducing nutrients right now water changes are working for me, since I added about 6 more fish recently to help with some issues I'm having to go back to carbon dosing until I can get things back where I want them. I'm hoping to remove about 12-14 fish by the end of the summer.

 

[M007]

Thanks for the replies. Sorry I didn't put any test info as I wanted to know more about my fish numbers than anything else. Here are my test numbers:

Lighting is a single 400w 20k Radium.

KH: 9
Ca: 410
Mg: 1300
Po4: 0 but on an elos kit. Don't have a "real" tester
No3: 0-ish. Again on an elos kit.
SG: 1.025

The only colour I can keep well is green. All my other acros show great blue + purple fresh growth, but turn brown at the bodies.

I do an 8% water change once a week with 0 tds ro/di water.

I don't have any nuisance algae issues besides some cyano but it seems to come and go.

With the number of fish you have and the amount you are feeding I would question that P04 reading. You might want to invest in one of the Hanna P04
testers for more accurate readings.

 

[SOS]

I have a high bio load in my tank with the same measurements which I thought was a 65g? I have 13 fish, which will be moving to a 225 hopefully at the end of summer, and my montis died off, except for my red cap, and sps started to brown out due to my ro units membrane crappin out. There still were some acros that kept their color, but nothing was real happy. Maybe you could double check perams with an LFS just rule something like that out? Before my ro unit crappin out everything was decently colored, and my nitrates usually range from 10-20. I don't run a skimmer. All I do is 15g wc every Monday.

I think that our tanks are actually somewhere between 65 and 70 gal. I had a tank exactly half the size (18x18x24) and it was sold to me as a 34gal.

I wish I could do a 15gal water change but since I live in a smaller condo I don't have room for large water containers. I can only do 4gal changes at a time. I wonder how other people in condos do water changes?

 

[ReeferBill]

#Fish?

#Fish?

I had 3 clowns, 4 chromis , 2 firefish , 2 damsels , a 6-line , a royal gramma , a red scooter , a coral beauty , a midas . Ths was 16 fish in a 46 gallon bow with a 38 gallon refugium, I traded in 2 chromis and the 2 sulfur damsels and found my midas dead in the sink after tearing down and catching the fish. I hade removed all my rock and cleaned it of all the bubble algea.This brings me diwn to 11 fish , I think this is much better. What do you guys think?:idea: