Smaller Reef Stock Lists

york3rdbase

york3rdbase

Premium member
For all of those with tanks less than 40 gallons, what fish do you have stocked? Looking for ideas for my 34 gallon deep blue (36x18x12)
 
I think the go to is clowns, shrimp/goby pair, a smaller wrasse.

Some other fish people seem to do are fire fish, bangaii, smaller hawk fish, damsel/chromis, etc.

Your mainly looking for fish that will not quickly outgrow the tank. There are plenty of other fish you could do as wel


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Wildisme said:
I think the go to is clowns, shrimp/goby pair, a smaller wrasse.

Some other fish people seem to do are fire fish, bangaii, smaller hawk fish, damsel/chromis, etc.

Your mainly looking for fish that will not quickly outgrow the tank. There are plenty of other fish you could do as wel


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I agree. Pretty much all the possible fish I am choosing from for my 29.
 
Wildisme said:
I think the go to is clowns, shrimp/goby pair, a smaller wrasse.

Some other fish people seem to do are fire fish, bangaii, smaller hawk fish, damsel/chromis, etc.

Your mainly looking for fish that will not quickly outgrow the tank. There are plenty of other fish you could do as wel


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LOL nailed it. My BC29 2 clowns, cleaner shrimp, YWG, six line wrasse
 
I’ve seen the recommendation that you figure 0.5” of fish per gallon, but that doesn’t take into account so many factors which are unique to each tank.
Not to hijack the thread but I also want to get opinions of the more experienced reefers regarding the bio-load impact of several factors that in my mind impact the safe bio-load capacity of a reef tank.
For example; how to assess the impact of more sedentary fish compared to a highly active ‘never stop moving’ fish. Along these lines, why aren’t the CUC inverts, e.g. crabs, shrimp, snails, urchins, counted by people towards the tanks total bio-load.
My general thoughts are if you have highly energetic fish, they have a higher metabolism which requires more O2 and generate significantly more waste. If you have a fish that hangs out in a cave all day waiting for mealtime, they don’t consume as much O2 and less waste. Different fish create a completely different bio-load.
To me, this raises the challenge to optimize stocking but to not put yourself in the position where if you lose power, fish are getting stressed within minutes due to the quickly falling O2. Or a system where a fish dies and quickly spikes the ammonia due to the tank running at the maximum for biological breakdown of waste and inability to expand further to help control the added input of nutrients.
Why isn’t the amount of live rock included in the calculation, isn’t that where most of the bacteria reside that will break down the toxic ammonia to less toxic nitrite then nitrate and eventually to harmless N2 gas?
What about the impact of a large refugium with rapidly growing macro-algae removing nutrients from the water column?
What about using filter socks and removing them a couple times a week to remove uneaten food/waste/detritus or the use of a protein skimmer?
 
goatous said:
I’ve seen the recommendation that you figure 0.5” of fish per gallon, but that doesn’t take into account so many factors which are unique to each tank.
Not to hijack the thread but I also want to get opinions of the more experienced reefers regarding the bio-load impact of several factors that in my mind impact the safe bio-load capacity of a reef tank.
For example; how to assess the impact of more sedentary fish compared to a highly active ‘never stop moving’ fish. Along these lines, why aren’t the CUC inverts, e.g. crabs, shrimp, snails, urchins, counted by people towards the tanks total bio-load.
My general thoughts are if you have highly energetic fish, they have a higher metabolism which requires more O2 and generate significantly more waste. If you have a fish that hangs out in a cave all day waiting for mealtime, they don’t consume as much O2 and less waste. Different fish create a completely different bio-load.
To me, this raises the challenge to optimize stocking but to not put yourself in the position where if you lose power, fish are getting stressed within minutes due to the quickly falling O2. Or a system where a fish dies and quickly spikes the ammonia due to the tank running at the maximum for biological breakdown of waste and inability to expand further to help control the added input of nutrients.
Why isn’t the amount of live rock included in the calculation, isn’t that where most of the bacteria reside that will break down the toxic ammonia to less toxic nitrite then nitrate and eventually to harmless N2 gas?
What about the impact of a large refugium with rapidly growing macro-algae removing nutrients from the water column?
What about using filter socks and removing them a couple times a week to remove uneaten food/waste/detritus or the use of a protein skimmer?
Click to expand...

there's so many factors that i think it would be impossible to come up with a formula that would output how much you can stock. Seems to me each situation needs to be evaluated on it's own. I had a 12 gallon before i moved into a 29 gallon. I tripled my tank size and on top of that added a skimmer and sump and chemical filtration and tripled my live rock. But I only added 1 fish.

think you just need to monitor your parameters based on how you do things and that will determine how much livestock you can have. I haven't been doing this very long but I don't think this is something that a formula answers. The best advice I ever read while doing my research was take care of your water and your chances for success are much better. So I focus on taking care of my water and keeping it clean and within range. So far so good!
 
[MENTION=3678]goatous[/MENTION] IMHO, CUCs generally are not considered, because they are a negative to the bioload as they consume, scavenge, and/or breakdown more waste than they create.
 
I had a centropyge in my last small tank. Golden dwarf moray gets my vote. By far coolest fish I've ever had. I think once I get one of those fancy new acrylic mesh lids I'll added another one.


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