Livestock Questions

malx

malx

Active member
Hi, Everyone.

I'm building a custom reef tank from scratch. I pretty much have all of my gear decided on, but want to know how many fish I can add. I'll be running soft corals only. Here are the specs.

The tank is 62.3 gallons based on measurements of 36x20x20. I will be running the top waterline at 17 so that gives me a total water volume of 53.0 gallons and a surface area of 720in2. Based on this calculator I can have 15 inches of fish. http://www.howmanyfish.com/

Also, I am over-engineering this tank filtration wise and all of the filtration I will have is designed to filter a tank that is 120-150 gallon. Doing this to be able to keep the lowest nutrient environment and reduce water changes.

The main components of my filtration will be:

Note the total water volume of the sump is 36.5 gallons and will add 525in2 of surface area of 11 inches of fish.

Here are my questions.
1: When calculating how much fish/livestock you can keep, do you include the sump water volume and surface area in it?
2: Here's the livestock list I am interested in:
  • 3x Domino Damsel
  • 3x Green Chromis
  • 1x Flame Hawk
  • 1x Royal Gramma
  • 1x Percula Clownfish
  • 1x Lemonpeel Angelfish
  • 1x Sandsifting Goby
  • 1x Pom Pom Crab
  • 1x Blood Shrimp
  • 4x Snails
  • 4x Hermits

If I needed to reduce the amount of fish I could do...
  • 1x Domino Damsel
  • 1x Green Chromis
  • 1x Blue Chromis
  • 1x Flame Hawk
  • 1x Royal Gramma
  • 1x Percula Clownfish
  • 1x Lemonpeel Angelfish
  • 1x Sandsifting Goby
  • 1x Pom Pom Crab
  • 1x Blood Shrimp
  • 4x Snails
  • 4x Hermits

Anything think this will work or am I overstocking?
 
The domino damsel isnt going to work. Too large and too aggressive. The flame hawk will eat the shrimp. Im not sure if a sand sifting goby can survive in a tank that size( if you are talking sleeper goby), you may want to try something like a watchman goby or and shrimp goby instead
 
randomfishguy85 said:
The domino damsel isnt going to work. Too large and too aggressive. The flame hawk will eat the shrimp. Im not sure if a sand sifting goby can survive in a tank that size( if you are talking sleeper goby), you may want to try something like a watchman goby or and shrimp goby instead
Click to expand...

Ok. So scratch the Domino and Flame Hawk. I wanted the Goby to be able to clean up the sand. Have a recommendation of a fish that will sift the sand to keep the debris off of it?

Green and Blue Chromis ok? Maybe give me one more fish that you recommend? Instead of the 3x domino's what about another type of fish that's black and white that's not large and aggressive.

Let me know and thanks in advance!
 
I would not use a sand shifting fish. In that small of a tank, the sand shifting will decimated and remove all the sand fauna, make it impossible to keep a live sand bed. A little stick and stir the sand occasionally would be what I would do.
Lemonpeel Angel will get a little big for this tank. Maybe one of the smaller angel. If you like yellow, maybe a yellow angel (C. heraldi). Several other angels maybe suitable include Flame, Flameback, Cherub... All of these are smaller than Lemonpeel.
Avoid Domino damsel or chromis. Chromis will not shoal or school. Then tent to pick each other off until there is one large one. Bright blue and yellow active small fish, nothing beat Azure or Yellow tail damsels. Get a pair of either and they will breed in your tank. I like Yellow tail better
Like I wrote earlier, avoid wrasse unless you are going to put a tight fit top in your tank
Royal Gramma is a good choice, but they tend to loose color unless your tank is in great condition and feeding exceptional variety diet. Get two Orchid Dottyback, they are much better choice in my opinion. A pair of Percula. However, I like to have anemones with clownfish. They are much more interesting living in their anemone. I am not sure if you are up to this.

When possible, I like to keep breeding units instead of singleton. This is not possible for all fish or in a small tank like your's. All the fish I suggested above have good temperament and will not be a bully in a tank like your's.
 
There is a chance the Flame Hawk may eat your shrimp. I had my Hawk for 1.5 years now and he hasn't paid any attention to the inverts (shrimp included), just depends on the fish. I think you will have a better chance if the shrimp is a good size and is in the tank before the Hawk. Also, IMO the Lemonpeel Dwarf Angel will need a bigger tank. They are one of the bigger species of the Dwarfs.
 
Flame hawk will eat shrimp, damsels will be Devils, chronic will get uronema unless properly quarantined lemon peel will eat a lot of coral Pom Pom crab may attack fish/coral sand sifting goby will make a sandstorm in that size tank
 
juniorrocketdad said:
Flame hawk will eat shrimp, damsels will be Devils, chronic will get uronema unless properly quarantined lemon peel will eat a lot of coral Pom Pom crab may attack fish/coral sand sifting goby will make a sandstorm in that size tank
Click to expand...

Well, this all may be true, it is Saltwater so the general consensus is that anything can eat anything at anytime. Going to be doing more research.
 
malx said:
Well, this all may be true, it is Saltwater so the general consensus is that anything can eat anything at anytime. Going to be doing more research.
Click to expand...
In general the fish we keep in our reef aquariums are not predators of other fishes or shrimps with some exception.
 
malx said:
Well, this all may be true, it is Saltwater so the general consensus is that anything can eat anything at anytime. Going to be doing more research.
Click to expand...



This is foolish to think, the general consensus is almost always right and some people keep things like flame angels for a year and claim they are model citizens, the truth is all these people that go against consensus in the long run end up eating their words, don't make a foolish decision
 
You may want to reconsider the Chromis, or at the very least anticipate a full 2-month quarantine. They are prone to Uronema Marinum, which is a nasty disease and virtually impossible to eradicate.
 
juniorrocketdad said:
Flame hawk will eat shrimp, damsels will be Devils, chronic will get uronema unless properly quarantined lemon peel will eat a lot of coral Pom Pom crab may attack fish/coral sand sifting goby will make a sandstorm in that size tank
Click to expand...

There are differences between various species. Not all damsels are the same, not all angels are the same, not all angel will eat all corals ...... and ......

I guess that is where simplistic beginners and advances reefers are different.
 
OrionN said:
There are differences between various species. Not all damsels are the same, not all angels are the same, not all angel will eat all corals ...... and ......



I guess that is where simplistic beginners and advances reefers are different.
Click to expand...



I never said all damsels are Devils but ik for a fact domino damsels are and lemon peels are the worst angels in terms of having hem eat corals
 
juniorrocketdad said:
This is foolish to think, the general consensus is almost always right and some people keep things like flame angels for a year and claim they are model citizens, the truth is all these people that go against consensus in the long run end up eating their words, don't make a foolish decision
Click to expand...

That's what I said. I'm agreeing with you. I don't think I'm foolish at all. So just because a fish is OK today, does not mean it will be tomorrow.
 
Anyone here have thoughts on Blue Damsels?

I'm thinking of this now:


Percula Clown 2
Watchman Goby 1
Royal Gramma 1
Flame Hawk 1 (will take the risk that he will eat the shrimp)
Yellow & Black Heraldi Angelfish 1
Linespot Flasher Wrasse 1 (Will have egg crate on the top)



Cleaner Snail 5
Cleaner Hermit Crab 5
Blood Shrimp 1
Pom Pom Crab 1



I want to add three schooling fish that are either blue or green, or even orange. Any suggestions here? Lyretail Anthias maybe?
 
juniorrocketdad said:
If quarantined properly blue chronic are probably your bet bet, your tank is kind of small for more Han one lyretail tbh
Click to expand...

Thanks! Are Blue and Green Chromis require the same kind of deal, maybe I can get two of each? They both require a rigorous quarantine procedure? What if I add them to the tank first? This way if they get sick, they won't kill anything else and I can simply start over. Or does what they get, get stuck in the rock at that point?
 
Anyone have any luck with keeping pufferfish in small reef tanks? I know they could eat inverts. Thoughts on this?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
malx said:
Thanks! Are Blue and Green Chromis require the same kind of deal, maybe I can get two of each? They both require a rigorous quarantine procedure? What if I add them to the tank first? This way if they get sick, they won't kill anything else and I can simply start over. Or does what they get, get stuck in the rock at that point?
Click to expand...



They are both very peaceful but tbh idk if you can mix the too, what they get is a disease called uronema that if it gets in the tank the only way to get rid of it is a tank tear down since it is not an obligate parasite and will be in the tank forever
 
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