When is enough enough?

[GT350pwns]

I would say that my 36 gallon bow front is very well stocked when it comes to fish and inverts, if not slightly overstocked (pair of clowns, midas blenny, flame angel, pair of yasha gobies, small harem of 4 sexy shrimp, 2 skunk cleaners, pair of candy stripe pistols, 2 pom pom crabs, misc snails and hermits).

But, I'm wondering when it should be time to call it quits on corals.

I have only had reef capable lighting since October and have been adding corals every chance I get. I've got a rainbow bubble tip (not coral, but sort of falls into the category imo), a small frag of jason fox jack o lantern, meteor shower cyph, blue branching hammer, purple tipped green branching hammer, branching frogspawn, branching octospawn, GSP that is slowly regenerating after being cut off of the back glass, a small rock full of eagle eye zoas, a 5 polyp frag of eagle eyes off of said rock, a frag plug with about 10 rasta zoas, a single rasta on a frag plug, another small rock w/ eagle eyes and some unknown green zoa that was a gift from a vendor, a purple rimmed green monti, red planet frag, pink lemonade frag, an "aqua delight" acro frag, and I have a 5" colony of "aussie" acropora subulata that will be here on Thursday.


All in all, I think i have a problem hahaha. (too small of a tank?! haha)

Are there any guidelines for when to say "that's enough" and let everything fill in?

No current FTS, will work on that tomorrow when I'm home from work to help give folks a better idea of what I'm working with.

 

[rwb500]

there are no rules. its up to you. it just depends what you want your tank to look like.

 

[GT350pwns]

I love the look of a "full" reef.

But, as I said, not sure when to stop with all the little bits and pieces and let it fill in lol

 

[CoralBeauty13]

I didn't know there was a time to stop.

 

[rgulrich]

That's a question I'm not sure I'm qualified to answer. As one of my friends and fellow reef keeper recently said "Look at all that open space on the bottom!":


Oh, and this is an end shot of the 300...

Cheers,
Ray

 

[kmbyrnes]

If your tanks looks full, it's time for a bigger tank.

 

[GT350pwns]

Fair enough to all of this! Lol

Can't wait until I'm able to have a bigger tank as I think the 36 may begin to be a bit crowded with growth over the next few months.

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

Not realy a limit to how many corals you can put in as long as you're able to keep up with water quality and corals that arn't so friendly aren't growing into eachothers territory. Some people like a few migger colonies, some like to fill it up with frags of all sorts. Some want a tank with basicaly no room for water while others want alot of open swimming room. All depends on your tastes. Coral don't realy add much to the bioload. Mostly just what you may feed them. Heck, they may even help as softies and probably others get some use out of some organics in the water column. I'd personaly like a 300g stuffed with coral. Like pokemon, I've gotta catch 'em all. Hence why I have a mixed reef and not just SPS or just this or that.

 

[cleverbs]

May I point out a lesson I learned.

I heavly stocked my 220g reef with LPS corals and I had a lot of very large colonies that I got from reefers getting out of the hobby or chaning thier tank. I knew about dosing Alk, Cal, Mag however never really thought I would need to do it because most people who talk about it run SPS tanks. Well then my corals started melting away one day and dying and it was because my Alk Cal Mag fell out of balance because water changes every week or every other week where not keeping up with the amount consumed by the corals. This caused me to lose a lot of corals. Keep an eye on that because you dont want to fall into the same hole I did. Because by the time I got the equipment and chemicals to dose it was to late and I lost a lot!

 

[dendrite]

There's that old expression, "It's not a hobby, it's an addiction. " For myself I suppose the tank will be full when it explodes.

 

[hotelbravo]

There's that old expression, "It's not a hobby, it's an addiction. " For myself I suppose the tank will be full when it explodes.

i am addicted and i know it!