incysor said:
Oh...And I wasn't trying to imply that your tank wasn't doing just fine with that many fish in it....I'm pretty much known for overfiltering and adding more fish than is normally recommended, so I was just curious is all.
B
Hi guys,
Sorry for a later response :roll: - Didn't realize that this thread was still going and missed it. Thanks for the inquiries.
As for my tank that's just been over a year, this is the max number of fish I have decided on and planned out.
2 True Perc Clowns (11 months): hosts in frogspawn at bottom centre right
2 Chromis (10 months): hangs out in middle area in and outside of rocks
1 Yellow Goby (8 months): swims all over the tank and lays on rocks and coral
1 Medium sized Coral Beauty (7 months): swims all over the tank through rock work
1 Randall Jawfish (3 months): stays in one spot in a hole dug in the substrate at middle left of tank
As for filtration, somewhat simple. In the 37 gallon I have
- 50-60lbs of live rock (Bali, Fiji, Miyaki) - great natural filtration
- a very simple and basic Salines Solution Hang On Skimmer w/ Air Stone changed monthly
- a CPR Hang On Back Refugium which has a little bit of live rock and Macro Algae (Red Grape and Chaeto)
- and 10% water change weekly (or 20% water change if I miss a week)
- I'm going to include my inverts in the filtration section because they do help keep the tank clean: 1 cleaner shrimp, 15-20 snails (nassarius, margaritas, astreas, trochus), 3 sexy shrimp, cocoworm, a few yellow feather dusters, and an emerald crab
Now I know there are many opinions and rules of thumbs about X number of fish per gallon, but from my learnings and research, I also consider size and type of fish in tank. 3 Yellow tangs in a tank versus 3 yellow clown gobies will not produce the same bioload of course. The Coral Beauty is the largest of the group and everyone else is considered small or at most small/medium of size. Also considered where all the fish would hang out before purchase and they have all taken up residence in various parts of the tank as their natural tendency was expected to. None seem to be stressed and family is happy :beers: . So far I've been fortunate and the bioload seems to be working well. Ammonia and all other tests have been at a constant 0 or very close to 0 depending on day.
I'll see if I get a moment to post a pic this weekend. As for my 3 gallon and my girlfriend's 2.5 gallon, we don't plan on getting any small fish for the tank, just staying with the inverts. Will post pics of them soon.
I appreciate the questions, so ask if you wish. Apologies Phischy and intentions of this long response is not to thread crap, just wanted to share my answers on some inquiries.
Oh and a side note, I'm up in Toronto Canada, so I'd like to say that we do things differently here with our reef tanks and the cold keeps our tanks clean :^o ... But the truth is that many of our systems are just like those in the US.
Ron