Stocking Limits for Large Tanks

R

Raoul5Duke

Active member
I'm wondering how people think about stocking limits in larger systems? I have a 360 gallon DT, 40 gallon Frag & 80 gallon sump (~ 40 in operation) plumbed together. Filtration includes an oversized skimmer (JNS Shark series 7 rated 1000 gallons, minor amount of carbon & GFO changed monthly and a large algae scrubber. This is primarily an SPS tank.

Stocking List:
Convict Blenny
6 Bartletts anthias
2 Oc. Clowns
golden head sleeper goby
melanarus wrasse
2x Red Velvet Fairy wrasse
One spot Foxface
Royal Gramma
Lawnmower Blenny (Might move to frag tank if he doesn't explode first from eating so much :p)
2 purple firefish
2 regular firefish
1 Flame Hawk (resides in Frag Tank)

Plan on adding
Copperband
Matted Filefish
3 Tangs (undecided but these are going in last to hopefully reduce aggression)

That entire list including the planned additions would put me close to ~120 total inches mature size or about 1"/ 3 gallons (I know that rule is not the best to go by)

Any thoughts or suggestions?
 
Those are small fish you will be more than fine. Be considerate of adding the copperband if you have any nice lps tho.
 
It's really about two things: swimming/sleeping room and nutrient export. Adding additional volumes in the form of adjacent tanks really does very little for either. In fact, I'm not sure that additional tanks aren't counterproductive as they reduce the 'dilution effect' of water changes.

In terms of you current and proposed fish load - I wouldn't consider them excessive, as long as you have the nutrient export mechanism to support that many. FWIW, I have 40 fish in my 265, or varying sizes.
 
Thanks, I know the copperband could be an issue and possibly the filefish but I wanted to take the risk as I think the copperband is a really cool fish and I have a majano infestation I am hoping the filefish will help with. I tried a majano wand and I think it made things worse. I forgot to mention I do week 30 gallon water changes via a genisis system which I could increase if needed.
 
Maybe a few more wrasses?

If SPS dominant, might be able to sneak an angel in.

Which tangs are you leaning towards?

Any pictures of the setup?
 
FWIW we picked up a matted filefish and it hasn't touched many aiptasia/manjanos if any. But he does seem to like LPS if his stomach isn't plump full of food... :eek2:

The other thing is he will ONLY eat frozen. Hasn't touched anything else food wise besides the poor LPS as far as I can tell. Maybe we got unlucky with a crazy one though. :crazy1:

When I talked to a popular skimmer manufacturer (RO) they told me that to them bio load was pretty much only considered heavy in predator tanks. The predators tear the food/meat to shreds and dirty up the water quality really quickly from what he was telling me. He asked me if I had a reef tank and as soon as I said yes, he considered my stocking to only be able to reach medium levels basically, no matter what I was adding. And that was with telling him we were planning lots and lots of large tangs (we already have 11 with a dussumieri, blochi, few sailfins etc). If you look at 02manyfish's build thread he seems to have his 400g stocked with about 200 fish! I don't really know the exact number of fish he has but I remember seeing a ton of fish everywhere in his tank and also tons of amazing corals. I wouldn't worry one bit about 26 mostly small fish in a 360. Back in the day we bought a running 55g hex tank off craigslist with 20 fish or so in it (a yellow tang and three 1 foot long engineer gobys in there too). The nitrates were like 40ppm but everyone was happy and it came with a few corals too; hammer, trumpets, and mushrooms from what I can remember.
 
A_CoupleClowns said:
FWIW we picked up a matted filefish and it hasn't touched many aiptasia/manjanos if any. But he does seem to like LPS if his stomach isn't plump full of food... :eek2:

The other thing is he will ONLY eat frozen. Hasn't touched anything else food wise besides the poor LPS as far as I can tell. Maybe we got unlucky with a crazy one though. :crazy1:

When I talked to a popular skimmer manufacturer (RO) they told me that to them bio load was pretty much only considered heavy in predator tanks. The predators tear the food/meat to shreds and dirty up the water quality really quickly from what he was telling me. He asked me if I had a reef tank and as soon as I said yes, he considered my stocking to only be able to reach medium levels basically, no matter what I was adding. And that was with telling him we were planning lots and lots of large tangs (we already have 11 with a dussumieri, blochi, few sailfins etc). If you look at 02manyfish's build thread he seems to have his 400g stocked with about 200 fish! I don't really know the exact number of fish he has but I remember seeing a ton of fish everywhere in his tank and also tons of amazing corals. I wouldn't worry one bit about 26 mostly small fish in a 360. Back in the day we bought a running 55g hex tank off craigslist with 20 fish or so in it (a yellow tang and three 1 foot long engineer gobys in there too). The nitrates were like 40ppm but everyone was happy and it came with a few corals too; hammer, trumpets, and mushrooms from what I can remember.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. I know there are some risks with the Filefish and Copperband, but the majanos are really becoming an issue and removing the rock is not an option at this time. My nitrates have remained in check around between 0.6 & 1.2 for the last 4 months according to Aquarium Water Testing so looks like I have a ways to go before that's an issue.
 
I had the aiptasia problem about 5 years ago, and did the copperband as well. It ate the aptasia then it are all my nice acans. Someone mentioned predator tank and that's true a reef will help absorb your fish load it's the carnage tanks that get the nitrate issues. I'm conservative with my fish still I'm more about the corals but for example I've had 0 nitrates for years with a black tang, purple tang, yellow tang, chevron tang, 5 firefish, barbonis anthias, 2 yellow belly hippo, mandarin, 2 cleaner wrasse, midas blenny, and a pair of black onyx clowns.this is in a 280 w a bk200 internal skimmer.
 
Just make sure the copperbanded eats in the store. Some won't eat regular food. Mine completely destroyed my aptasia infestation in a few weeks. Took him a couple days to get the bloodlust for them but after that he went crazy. Still eats rods food like crazy. Hope he doesn't start to nip cause damn he's beautiful.
 
dynomight said:
Just make sure the copperbanded eats in the store. Some won't eat regular food. Mine completely destroyed my aptasia infestation in a few weeks. Took him a couple days to get the bloodlust for them but after that he went crazy. Still eats rods food like crazy. Hope he doesn't start to nip cause damn he's beautiful.
Click to expand...

Getting the copperband from an online vendor so that's not possible, but it will be in QT for 4-6 weeks so hopefully I can get it eating well in there.
 
Raoul5Duke said:
Getting the copperband from an online vendor so that's not possible, but it will be in QT for 4-6 weeks so hopefully I can get it eating well in there.
Click to expand...

Great you're getting him in the tank before the tangs.

Our CCB died after being in our display for 3 days of pure fright of our tangs.

He was in QT for 9 weeks and ate from day one... such a shame :(

Think it's partly my fault for not using an acclimation box...
 
A_CoupleClowns said:
When I talked to a popular skimmer manufacturer (RO) they told me that to them bio load was pretty much only considered heavy in predator tanks. The predators tear the food/meat to shreds and dirty up the water quality really quickly from what he was telling me.
Click to expand...

That actually makes no sense to me at all :lol: First, most of the fish we keep are 'predators', and second, whether food is fully consumed, or ripped up, it's the same amount of input. Just underscores what I have always felt; equipment manufacturers know precious little more than we hobbyists, often less.
 
ca1ore said:
That actually makes no sense to me at all :lol: First, most of the fish we keep are 'predators', and second, whether food is fully consumed, or ripped up, it's the same amount of input. Just underscores what I have always felt; equipment manufacturers know precious little more than we hobbyists, often less.
Click to expand...

I think it all comes down to opinion in this hobby most of the time. Remember there is more than one way to get things done ;). The rep. that said this has a pretty nice 200g sps tank with quite a few tangs, I am fairly confident he is pretty knowledgeable.

Let me explain a bit, predatory fish are messy, messy eaters. Small pieces of meat fly everywhere and they don't get eaten. In reality its not quite as simple as nutrients in = nutrients out. Think about it like this; fish actually use up quite a bit of the nutrients in the food they eat. They use it in the form of energy to swim around, and bodily functions. Afterwards the waste and whatever is leftover from that food they ate is crapped out, but the amount of nutrients in the crap does not equal the amount of nutrients originally consumed in the food, imo its far less. When you eat a meal your body uses nutrients from the food you ate for energy and all types of things going on inside of you, so the waste you excrete will have far less nutrients in it than the food that was consumed. If you let food just sit on the bottom of the tank and rot away, all of the nutrients contained in that food end up going straight into the water as it decomposes and that in turn fouls the water quality much more than fish crap. :fish1::fish2:

Also, IMO if you put a real predatory fish in your reef tank, in most cases it will end up being the last fish left in the tank. I don't know about you, but we don't keep any fish that do that type of thing in our reef tank. I would rather burn $100's to keep warm than do that :eek1: :lmao:
 
Still don't buy it. Very little food goes to waste in my tank. Anything the fish don't eat (not all that much though) is quickly CUC'd. Still gets the opportunity to generate body mass. If by REAL predators you mean things like sharks, then no, none of those chez moi. Having a nice tank does not also mean the lack of a hairbrained idea or two ..... I should know.
 
Just for fun, I don't really agree with any of this. Skimming at best only removes ~30% of the targeted proteinaceous dissolved matter. Fish food and excrement certainly does accumulate without due diligence in maintenance and proper clean-up crew. Fish are at least as bad as us for food value wasted as excrement. Their guts, like ours, are only capable of extracting about half the nutrients available in their food at any one time. That's why coprophagy is a well-known and time-honoured way of making a living in the sea.

Instead of stating maxims think in terms that everybody is a little bit correct and then try to find balance in your system. Remember that no two tanks behave the same, so take all advice with a grain of salt and don't do anything too drastic too quickly.

Dave.M
 
If you want to see stocking limits go to a wholesaler and ask them how many gallons they have per system, filtration for that system and how often they do or do not feed and do water changes. That will give you a rough idea of what can or can't be accomplished... This will all be based on available funds or lack there of but if your pockets are deep, the sky is the limit
 
I personally don't consider tangs predators, when I'm in the ocean I'm not thinking hey watch out there's a tang over there. And it doesn't have to go from one extreme to the other,there are many in between fish that aren't sharks that are predatory. Thats also a state of mind of the owner of that kind of tank which is rarely if ever a reef system, mostly fowlr. What i mean by that is typically reefers buy a tank for the reef then show constraint on the fish as to respect the ecosystem, predatory tank owners love aggressive fish that's why they bought the tank to watch it be aggressive and for that reason they feed way more and even foods not maybe always fed to reef fish. My first reef 10 years ago i kinda liked aggression so bought a red weedy rhinopias I would buy it 5 chromis per week to feed it, while he didn't shred food apart he def had a higher bio load than a tang would.
 
Dmorty217 said:
If you want to see stocking limits go to a wholesaler and ask them how many gallons they have per system, filtration for that system and how often they do or do not feed and do water changes. That will give you a rough idea of what can or can't be accomplished... This will all be based on available funds or lack there of but if your pockets are deep, the sky is the limit
Click to expand...

Thanks for all the feedback guys. The more I think about it, since I love my SPS corals, I am guessing I will run into nitrate or PO4 issues before the fish get too crowded in my system so I will likely use those levels and coral health as my guide. I really love the big system and being able to keep multiple fish now vs. my previous system.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

V
Feedback on this stocking list for 30g
Replies
0
Views
219
Varanis
V
P
50 Gallon Stocking Help
2
Replies
21
Views
2K
Urka
U
Z
5.7ft tank stocking
Replies
7
Views
1K
ZanaZoola14
Z
A
Stocking Recommendations for established 92 gal
Replies
8
Views
1K
Aquado
A
D
Stocking 220 reef tank
Replies
4
Views
912
Reefing102
Reefing102
Back
Top