How many fish in an imaginary tank?

seadragon1

In Memoriam
I am not sure if this is the best place to post this but I am designing this amazing public aquarium and I was wondering how many fish I could fit in my tanks? approx 500-3,000 gallons each.
It will probably never be built but I jut like stocking aquariums and studying the fish anyway.
I know this is an extremely stupid post but I could use some help (-:
 
what kind of fish do you plan on stocking these tanks with? Size of the fish, activity of the fish, and species all come into play when it comes to stocking.
 
There will be a variety of fish. All of the tanks will have a mix of calm and active fish. So I am looking for like a general stocking number for like peaceful and aggressive fish. Could I fill them up until the fish are bumping into each other or spread them out so they have lots of open swimming space?
 
I was thinking for peaceful I could fit around one peaceful fish with random size per square foot. And for aggressive aquariums I could fit around one fish per two square feet because most of them are larger.
 
Well... generally it's per the gallon. Your more peaceful and inactive fish will generally (not always) school so you can fit more in a smaller space. More active/aggressive fish require more space.

For instance, a 1' tang requires approximately 180 gallons. A 3" blue-green chromis requires about 30 gallons. Naturally, one can fit more than one fish in one tank. It all depends on your stock wish list really.

Do you have a wish list? That will help narrow things down to a more realistic answer.
 
For peaceful a lot will be gobies, buterflyfish, Anthais, and basslets.
For aggressive I want lots of angelfish, tangs, and triggerfish.
 
Most anthia species require about 70 gallons; however, you could put, say 3 in a 70G tank. Butterflies, I'm not too sure off the top of my head, I think about the same (don't quote me on that).
Basslets and gobies depend on the certain species but typically one fish requires anywhere from 20G to 30G. I'd say 2-3 per that equivalent size would work.

Dwarf angelfish, one takes up about 70G, only one per. Larger angels can require anywhere from 150G to 250G.
Tangs, check out the Tang Tank Size thread in the New to the Hobby Forum. You can find it in the helpful info for beginners sticky.

Triggerfish, I'd say about one for every 180 gallons.
For the aggressive you can have multiple fish. So, if you have a 210 you could theoretically have 3 dwarf angels, 3 small tangs, and 1 trigger.

I'd check out websites like liveaquaria.com to get more detailed information.
 
I like to stock peaceful tanks till the fish are bumping into each other but aggressive tanks need to be a little more spread out.
 
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