Stocking a reef tank

[Grnorton]

Ok so my question is going to sound very new guy ish. And I know the quick answer to the question but ide like to dive more in depth. When I look at a natural reef I see hundreds and hundreds of fish swimming circles around each other including tangs on tangs on tangs. It looks like a jumbled mess of fish all packed on top of eachother. Same thing goes for public aquariums etc. So why then in my reed tank am I limited to a small number of fish due to territory reasons. Let's get a discussion going on

 

[oldbones]

Look around that reef. There's water for miles in every direction, all ready to spread that waste way far away and dilute it to nothing.

That doesn't work in our little tanks.

If a fish on the reef gets in a beef with another fish on the reef, one of them can just move 6 or 8 feet in any direction.

That doesn't work in our little tanks.

 

[bat21]

Get a tank. Start stocking it. You'll understand soon enough.

 

[Azedenkae]

As above, your tank will be tiny compared to those public tanks (and the wild). Whilst they may all be packed together, they all have plenty of space to swim through when they are not packed.

 

[nuxx]

They'll probably be fine in a small space until somebody decides they don't like somebody else or everyone else and there really isn't anywhere for the others to run off to.